A New Harry
by Eternalscibe41
Summary: As a result of his third year, Harry's magic becomes unstable so he is taken by an eccentric genius who is thought dead and taught how magic should truly be used. Harry now knows enough to fulfill his destiny. The question is: what is his destiny? Hiatus!
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: I am not JK Rowling and so do not own Harry Potter, except in my dreams and so much stupid stuff happens there I know they aren't real.

Prologue

Some people believe that in times of strife, the universe will act of its own accord and throw up extraordinary people who will lead the human race out of those troubled times. These rare individuals, chosen by the earth we walk on, are known as Heroes, and whether we know it or not, they will defend our race, just as they have always done, and always shall.

Others people that there are 36 extraordinary people alive at all times, these 36 are known as the _Tzaddick_, men who embody justice itself. Together, these 36 made up the _lamadvavniks_; or the 36 men who uphold the world. The roots for this story are written in the history of what is currently the world's largest religion in the world, Christianity. When God sought to destroy Sodom for their sins, Abraham appealed to God, saying that if he could find 50 good men in Sodom, God should not destroy it. God agreed, causing Abraham to start bartering until finally God agrees he would save Sodom if Abraham could find 10 good men. In other words, we are saved from the wrath of the Gods, or the powers above, by these Righteous Men.

There are others who believe in the duality of the soul; that within every person, there is an animal soul, a base soul if you will, and a Divine soul. These two souls battle for dominance, one seeking to cause you to do selfish deeds, and the other to cause you to do selfless deeds. Some of the believers in this theory believe there are those born without an animal soul, or those who have defeated their animal soul, and are the very epitome of all that is good in this world.

There are yet again others, who believe that there are people who walk among us, as giants. These people are not giant in stature, but being. They do what is right, not what is easy, believing that no matter what is accepted by others as normal, and they can separate themselves from others and do the altruistic deed. These giants are not fearless, rather they have as much fear as any normal being, but they have courage to do what they know is right, for courage is not the absence of fear, but doing what is right, regardless of fear.

Some believe that the Earth has been blessed by the Gods, and given Angels to guide and protect us. These angels appear human, but their actions are Divine. They believe that these angels, these Divine beings, walk among us, guiding us and protecting us without our knowledge.

And there are still more who believe in the old myths of Gods who rule their universe through a pantheon, and before them, there were the Titans, who ruled their universe with absolute power, and every so often, one of these all powerful beings would come down to Earth and have a child. These demi-gods, as they became known, were the greatest of the greats, the heroes of whom so much are told, of Achilles who won the beach of Troy almost singlehandedly, of Perseus, who slew the mighty Medusa and brought her head back to his home, defeating a sea monster along the way, of Alexander, who was the greatest military commander of all time, and united more of the known world than any other leader.

It does not matter which you believed; in Heroes chosen by the Earth, in the Tzaddick, in those who had defeated their base soul, in the courage of mighty giants, the brilliance and exceptional ability of the Demi-Gods, or in Angels sent down by the Gods, there were few who would argue that Harry Potter was not one of these extraordinary beings.

In England, on the outskirts of Surrey, there is a small suburb known as Little Whinging. This suburb appeared to be perfectly ordinary, normal families with office workers and housewives, with children, all of whom competed to have the best car or garden or house. The adults would gossip about their neighbours, criticise the government and talk about recent events, being sure to express their displeasure at all that could be seen as below them. The children played in the streets, in the parks, enjoying themselves with football or simply meeting up to talk and "hang out". This perfectly ordinary suburb was home to one of the most extraordinary boys to ever walk the earth. It was a perfect example of the adage "A diamond in the rough". This boy was short, and quite thin and scrawny. His baggy clothing served to hide his lack of weight; however this in itself was not odd. During their teenage years, boys could appear to eat vast amounts of food without putting on weight, thanks to an overactive thyroid gland. This boy had untameable black hair, peculiar emerald eyes that had a haunted look and an odd lightning bolt scar on his forehead. Again this was not the extraordinary part, nor was it the fact he was a wizard, one of those who could wield magic, for he was one of a million who could do so. The thing that made this boy unique was that he was Harry Potter, the boy-who-wouldn't-die, recently known as the "Chosen One", a name that would have caused hardened Star Wars fans a reason to snort.

He did not appear to fit the standard fairytale stereotype of a hero, of the handsome, tall, fair haired man who could charm anyone. Instead, Harry was short, scarred, scrawny, flabby, with messy hair and a severe lack of social skills, possibly resulting from his childhood in which he had been hidden away in the cupboard under the stairs. Despite appearances, Harry was a hero. He had been marked as a special being from the moment a prophecy had been spoken, saying only he could equal Lord Voldemort, only he could defeat him and as a result of this prophecy, an innocent toddler had been attacked by the greatest Dark Lord in centuries. His parents had been killed, and when the unblockable killing curse was fired at the baby, he reacted. No-one knows how or why, but the curse was reflected and instead turned on its caster. The Dark Lord had been reduced to a shade, barely alive, but he survived and festered in the shadowy forests of Albania.

Left an orphan, the boy was dropped off at his only remaining relatives, his aunt and uncle, both muggles, by a wise and powerful man seeking to do right by his friends. Unfortunately, the orphan was abused and forced to labour from an early age. The boy, who many wizards and witches would have given their right arm to raise, was forced to fight for everything he was given, things which should have been freely given, were earned by a young boy. This rough upbringing, this forging of a weapon, hardened the boy into someone who was willing to fight, and would not surrender. The aforementioned wise and powerful wizard had hoped the boy would have a good childhood before having to fight, he was wrong, but the boy nonetheless grew into someone who was brave and true and honest. In short, his upbringing, horrible it may have been, made him a hero.

When the boy reached the age of 11, he was taken by the magical population to a school where he would learn to hone his abilities. His introduction to this world, where he was considered to be a national icon, was rough-within weeks of joining this new world, he was forced to fight a mountain troll, living proof of brawn not brain as a 12 foot tall muscle bound idiot. Where adult wizards twice his age would have faltered, Harry charged a head. He stood toe-to-toe with the troll to save someone he hardly knew, and succeeded. As a result he gained a friend, an extremely intelligent young witch known as Hermione who, alongside Ron Weasley, would form two thirds of the Golden Trio with Harry. This trio later stopped Lord Voldemort regaining a body, although Harry alone was forced to duel a full-grown wizard, and pass through a rigorous testing that pressed them to their limits.

After an eventful year, Harry was returned to his aunt and uncle, and his prison. After being warned by a house-elf known as Dobby not to return to Hogwarts, he returned to a school in which a number of attacks were taking place. These fear-inspiring attacks petrified many, and due to a similarity with an old legend in which Harry shared an ability known as Parseltongue, the ability to speak to snakes, with one of the founders of the school who was said to have left behind a monster to cleanse the school of the impure, suspicion fell on Harry as the perpetrator. After piecing together some clues, Harry found the nesting chamber of the beast, and entered. He faced the mythical Basilisk inside, a beast so terrible its very gaze could kill, a beast so terrible its venom could kill dragons within seconds, a beast so terrible its teeth were longer than a grown man. Again Harry faced incredible odds, and succeeded, this time without his friends, but a hat, a sword and a Phoenix were all he needed to defeat the 60 foot snake.

Although it seemed like nothing could be as eventful as his first two years, his third year was. As it turned out, Harry's parents had hidden using a charm known as the Fidelius charm, which hid knowledge of his parent's residence from all who weren't told by a secret keeper. This secret keeper betrayed Harry's parents and told Lord Voldemort, and when the assassination attempt failed, was imprisoned in Azkaban, the magical prison. Sirius Black was the betrayer, and among his many crimes was killing 12 people with a single spell, and this traitor managed to escape Azkaban, a never before attempted feat. He then broke into Hogwarts twice, before dragging Ron Weasley into the Whomping Willow in an attempt to lure Harry to him. Harry sprung the trap, and managed to subdue Black. Black then was able to explain he hadn't committed the crimes he was accused of, instead Peter Pettigrew had, a friend of Harry's dad, who had been masquerading as a pet mouse of Ron's. After capturing the real traitor, they began to head back to the castle but were beset by dementors as Remus Lupin, a professor of the school and former friend of Black's who had stumbled upon the meeting, transformed into a Werewolf. These dementors sucked happiness out of people, and could also kiss people, which sucked out their very soul, without which people degenerated into a lifeless husk. Sirius was captured and would have been kissed, but for Harry and Hermione travelling back in time and then Harry cast a Patronus to drive away the dementors to save his father's friend. The Patronus is one of the most advanced spells in the world, requiring power and concentration, something Harry had in abundance, and was so difficult few could cast it. Harry did, proving himself once more. Unfortunately, Peter Pettigrew escaped and so Sirius, still wrongfully convicted of his crimes, was forced to flee.

In the house of No. 4 Privet Drive, in the smallest bedroom, sat Harry Potter. However, he did not look like the typical hero his deeds made him seem to be, rather he was noticeably underfed and malnourished to the extent his height and weight would have been more appropriate for someone several years younger than him. Harry had untameable black hair, and emerald green eyes that seemed to sparkle, and atop his forehead, sat the almost universally recognised lightning bolt scar. His clothing, which appeared to have been made to fit a young rhino, only served to highlight his slenderness. However, despite his ragged clothing and emasculated appearance, Harry seemed to be larger than life and seemed to fill the room. Despite his aura that appeared to indicate he could handle himself in life-threatening situations, he appeared incapable of containing his excitement, which was shown by his constant glances at his wristwatch. He appeared to be counting down the minutes to midnight.

10

9

8

7

6

5

4

3

2

1

With a final tick, he reached the age of 14, which was an astonishing feat, all things considered, his latest feat, which was driving off a hundred dementors at the same time, seemed to border on the suicidal. It had actually had the effect on Harry that he had felt quite weak in the aftermath, and still did. This seeming lethargy had left him struggling to even cast a simple _lumos_, but Harry did not regret his actions in the slightest.

Even as this thought crosses his mind, he noticed that time appeared to be slowing down in his immediate vicinity, and this lead to him having apparently enhanced senses. He could hear his heart pounding; he could make out the individual movements of the fly's wings that was hovering on the other side of the room, which was even more extraordinary considering he wasn't even wearing his glasses. Just as this occurred to him, he felt an excruciating pain take hold of him, and felt his back arch as he experienced his blood vessels undergo a similar burning feeling as when he had been bitten by a basilisk, and its venom had flown through his veins towards his heart, destroying him from the inside out. He heard a terrible scream, filled with pain, the kind of scream that caused the hairs on the back of your neck to stand up. His last thought before he succumbed to the darkness that was already appearing at the edges of his vision was that the scream was his.

PLEASE READ AND REVIEW


	2. Chapter 2

Disclaimer- I do not in any way own Harry Potter or any of his friends, enemies or stalkers. I only own the plot, I hope, and I am not J.K. Rowling, as A; I am a man, and B, I'm a student.

Chapter 1

During his long slumber, a few words managed to penetrate through Harry's unreactive and comatose brain. "He's magically exhausted…the surge took it out of him …won't wake up for a few days…"

Slowly, Harry regained consciousness and opened his eyes, and saw that he was in an unfamiliar room. Immediately, he shot up to into an upright position, while attempting to grab his wand, only to fail as his vision was overcome with grey spots.

"Perhaps, if I try a little slower, it will work." He thought as he waited for his vision to clear. Slowly, this time, he reached over to grab his glasses before realising that he could see fine, however he did make sure to pick up his wand. Seeing his surroundings, he realised that there were a trio of people near him, all of who were wearing grey hooded cloaks that cast a shadow over their face.

"Where am I?" He asked the people, all of whom were simply staring at him. Despite his inability to get a clear view of their face, he was able to sense that they seemed quite surprised.

"What! You're up!" proclaimed one of the onlookers, his voice proclaiming him to be a man. He then turned to another of the hooded individuals beside him, before saying in an accusatory voice, "You said he would be out for a few days at least!"

The hooded figure only managed a stutter as a response, "But…I….How?" Harry guessed the figure to be a woman, and she visibly collected herself before attempting to launch a defence, "6 hours ago, his core was completely depleted. He shouldn't be able to move, let alone be conscious."

Harry, a little annoyed at seemingly being kidnapped by a group of people who were about to start their own conversation about him, angrily asked, "What in Merlin's name is going on?"

The man who had been the first to speak turned back to him. As Harry's focus fell on the movement he made, Harry realised, he was over 6 feet tall, and so cast a large, imposing figure upon the room. "I suppose the polite thing to do would have been to explain what's happening, but perhaps I should introduce everyone first. I'm Croaker; the woman beside me is Katala, our healer, and the man standing on my other side, is Bode." Finished Croaker as he pointed to each person in turn.

Katala, a petite woman, sat down next to and began to do wave her wand and muttered incomprehensively. Harry assumed she was casting some diagnostic charms on him, and noted a certain amount of similarity between what she was doing and what Madame Pomfrey did.

Bode was the polar opposite of Croaker, he cut a diminutive profile, standing at what Harry guessed to be about 5"8, and was rather slim of build. Despite this, Harry couldn't shake the feeling that this man was the most dangerous out of everyone in the room.

"Right, so you're Croaker, you're Katala and you're Bode. That's nice to know, but if I can bring this back to my original question, where am I, and what's going on?" responded Harry, his voice gradually increasing in volume throughout his monologue until he was nearly shouting, all the while his magic was responding to his disturbed emotions, creating a visible golden aura around his body.

This time, Bode answered his question, his deep voice sounding almost hollow. "You are currently in the Department of Mysteries, the research department of the Ministry of Magic." Bode's sepulchral voice sent shivers down Harry's spine as he continued," You have recently undergone what is known as a magical surge. Normally, this would generate a great deal of speculation about that person's abilities, and would lead to that person being closely watched by many, but from what we know of your future, and your past, we decided it would be best for all if we brought you here until you recovered and simply allowed any rumours of a magical awakening to dissipate. So, we convinced a few people to go and retrieve you from your home and bring you here."

"Wow." replied Harry. "I have two points; number one being that you essentially kidnapped me, and number two being a question, what exactly do you research?"

Croaker spoke up to answer this, allowing his voice to become slightly threatening, "We didn't kidnap you, we simply brought you here to allow you some reprieve from the journalists that would undoubtedly follow you around if it were made known what happened to you, isn't that right?" Harry sensed it was probably better to agree, rather than anger him, and so Croaker continued, "The Department of Mysteries was made to pierce through the veil of confusion that surrounds magic, to uncover his secrets, learn the spells used by the mages of old and unearth the truth about magical phenomenon, such as the magical surge that happened to you."

Here, Harry cut in, "Before we go any further, perhaps you could explain to me exactly what a magical surge is."

Croaker nodded before beginning, "Do you understand where magic for our spells comes from?"

"Sure," responded Harry, "Our core. Everyone knows that!"

"Not everyone knows how it travels from our core to our wand, and the answer is magical channels." Seeing the look of absolute confusion on Harry's face, Croaker began to elaborate, "Imagine your core is in your chest, around your heart. For the magic to reach your hand, and flow through it into your wand, it must travel through these things called channels, and the more frequently you use magic, the bigger the channels get, and so the easier magic travels and thus, the easier it is to cast the spell. Are you following me so far?"

Harry nodded so Croaker continued, "Everyone also knows that people seem to grow stronger in terms of magical strength as they age, but they don't really know why. I do, this is one of my areas of study. You see, the magical cores goes through various stages, up until the age of 9-11, it is very unstable but powerful, and reacts to your emotions, but you can't control it or learn to use a wand at this time. It's why magical schools don't begin to the age of 11. After this, it reaches a point where it…settles is the best word, I suppose, and after this it becomes much like any other muscle; The more it is used, the larger it grows, but you can't overuse it or you risk damaging it. It also has a maximum potential it can reach, which is a certain size it won't get bigger than, and around the age of 17 or 18, it stops growing altogether, regardless of whether it's reached its maximum potential or not.

But, you might be thinking, people still get stronger after the age of 17, and this confused people for a long time, but then a young wizard called Descartes published his thesis on magical channels. Basically he argued that the core provides the raw power for magic, the magical channels take it where it needs to go, and this was pretty commonly accepted, however he went on to say that not only could the magical core get larger and so increase a wizards strength, but the channels could get wider and smoother and so move magic more efficiently, allowing you to expend less energy in a spell, and have the same effect, which would also increase a wizards magical endurance. Are you still following me?"

Harry nodded, but queried, "Not that this isn't fascinating and all, but what does this have to do with a magical surge?"

"For me to explain that, you had to understand the idea of the core and the channels. What a magical surge does is progress your core to the point it stops growing, and allows you to reach your potential earlier. Although it actually increases your magical core to its potential, it also regresses your core in a way, and it becomes highly unstable and volatile again, meaning you need to relearn control. A magical surge also enlarges your magical channels, but not by very much, only enough that you won't hurt yourself by casting a spell."

"So that's what a magical surge does," answered Harry before continuing on with another question, confusion still evident in his face, "but why does it happen?"

"That's the part we don't know. What is known is that it generally happens after you emptied your core through the use of a very powerful spell. However, some people simply get magically exhausted and struggle with fatigue for a while after emptying their core, while others like you go through a surge in power shortly after emptying their core. It might have something to do with your power levels before the surge, or possibly age, gender or maybe even it needs the presence of a particular magic gift."

"Alright, so basically something happened to me, we don't know why, but basically it made me a lot more magically powerful, but I can't use this extra strength to cast spells for a while because my core is highly unstable. Do I understand this right?"

"That's essentially what happened, oh, and it also means you're emancipated?"

"Why and what does that mean?"

This time, it was Bode who answered, "Well, this surge destabilised your magical core, but by doing this, it dislodged the Ministry tracker placed in your core. This tracker is how we know when you do magic, and where you are when you do this. Because this tracker is removed, an event that is supposed to occur on your 17th birthday, all Ministry equipment will say that you are an adult as, in the eyes of magic, you are, so the Ministry decided that not only should you be magically an adult, but legally as well. That's essentially what emancipation is, that you become a legal adult with full rights, i.e. the right to practise magic outside school, the legal right to apparate, enter your family vaults and sign contracts in your own name. It also gives you right to listen to your prophecy."

"What prophecy?" asked Harry, confused once more.

Bode responded, his voice still making Harry a little uncomfortable, "The one we mentioned in the letter we sent you." Seeing Harry's still confused face, he added, "Apparently, you never received said letter. But anyway, it is a prophecy... you do know what a prophecy is. Right? Oh, good. Well it is about you and Lord Voldemort. After you recover, I'll take you down after this myself to show you it. Any more questions?"

Harry felt his eyes begin to drop a little as the strain of keeping them open increased. Only now as the conversation drew to a close, did he realise how tired he was, and so he limited his response to, "Only one, why wouldn't the letter get through?"

Croaker answered him, once more attracting Harry's attention. "Most likely your magical, sorry, former magical guardian placed a ward around your house to stop fan-mail getting to you, and our letter was stopped as well. But before we finish, I mentioned earlier your core would be a little unstable and so your control over magic will be very lax. Well, I called a family friend who may consent to teaching you control. He is one of the most powerful wizards I know, and if he is impressed with you, he will teach you some things.

At this point Harry realised that Bode had left, and as Croaker stood up, Harry felt the strain of keeping his eyes open, and allowed them to fall. Slowly, he fell into the darkness.

Please feel free to tell me where I went wrong, punctuation, plot, anything to help me improve. Well read and review, see you soon.


	3. Chapter 3

Hello again, I want to reiterate the point that I do not own Harry Potter, or anything else. I do, however, own a copy of the books. Also, does anyone have an idea for a pairing they want in the story, I have a few in my head, but want some advice.

Well, cya later, and please review, it gives me a warm, fuzzy feeling inside, but seriously is 1 review a chapter really so hard to get. Enjoy.

Chapter 2

As the sun's rays hit the bed of the only occupant in the hospital wing of the Department of Mysteries, said occupant woke up to find himself in a deserted area. Grimacing slightly, he stood up and made his way to the door to see where he could eat, stopping only for his wand. A growing boy needs his food, even if the growing boy is used to being starved. As he made to open the door, another person, Croaker, Harry thought he was called, walked in looking like a 5 year old on Christmas morning."

"Good, you're up. I'm not sure if I mentioned, but you probably have no control over your magic anymore so we need to fix that. Also we will first head down to the hall of prophecies to hear yours. Then if we have time, I have a portkey to send you to Gringotts, and then my friend should be arriving tonight or tomorrow morning. So, it will be a busy day."

"Can I eat first?"

"Ah, yes, food. If you must but I'd prefer if you didn't. We're on a tight schedule and you woke up late." said Croaker. Noticing a clock beside him say it was 7:30, he groaned. What time is early? Following Croaker down the bland, grey walls, he entered a room where a number of people were eating, at the sight of him, all whispered conversations stopped and heads swivelled to watch him as he made his way to a seat. Instantly, food popped up on the table around him, noting his confusion, Croaker said, "Enchantment on the tables, you sit and you get food, handy." Piling his plate, Harry barely heard him and began gorging himself on the appetising food. Within minutes he was finished and was beginning to reach for seconds, seeing this Croaker virtually dragged him out the door, muttering something about no time to waste and stupid teenagers thinking only of food. Once more Croaker dragged Harry down the corridors, ignoring his angry mutters about needing to eat. After a few minutes, the pair entered a room that appeared to be the size of the great hall, with a high ceiling and had regular rows of what, at first glance appeared to be bookcases. Soon, he realised they didn't hold books, they held orbs with white mist in them. Croaker led Harry to the far side of the room, until they passed a sign saying 97. They turned down that aisle and continued their course for a short time until, without warning, Croaker stopped and Harry nearly knocked into him. His seeker reflexes had come in handy and had stopped the collision. Croaker pointed at an orb about half-way up the bookcase, but was still above Harry's head. Croaker was forced to levitate Harry up to the orb, where he grabbed it before being let down to the ground. Attached to the orb, there was a tag saying:

S.P.T. to A.P.W.B.D

Dark Lord and (?) Harry Potter.

"Drop it."commanded Croaker.

"What? Why?" came the startled reply.

"Drop it, it's the only way to hear the prophecy." Obeying the slightly intimidating man, Harry dropped the orb causing a pearly-white figure with magnified eyes to appear. In harsh, hoarse tones, which sounded vaguely familar to Harry, the figure spoke," The one with the power to defeat the Dark Lord approaches.. Born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies... and the Dark Lord will mark him as his equal but he will have power the Dark Lord knows not .. and either must die at the hands of the other for neither can live while the other survives... the one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord will be born as the seventh month dies..." What this meant quickly became apparent to Harry, "I have to kill him, or he kills me."

"You're the only one who can. So, if you don't and the Dark Lord returns, then he will reign until he dies naturally." Seeing the expression on Harry's face, Croaker decided to shut up and simply led Harry out of the room.

The two made their way into a brightly-lit room with numerous wooden people lining the walls, which were again grey.

"Righto kiddo, I want you to fire a reducto at that doll. You can cast a reducto, right."

"Erm, about that. No."

"Merlin, kid, what the hell do they teach you at that school of yours. You know what, I don't wanna know. Does it involve how to properly handle you wand?" asked Croaker while laughing.

"That's all we did for a few months in first year. Why are you laughing?"

"No reason but how to cast reducto. Well, point your wand at it, twirl it anti-clockwise and say reducto. Right, good, go."

Pointing his wand nervously at the wooden doll, he twirled the wand, and shouted "Reducto!"

BOOM!

Clouds of ash erupted in the room, obscuring everything from view, as it slowly cleared, the wooden doll could be clearly seen.

"What in the ruddy hell just happened, there was a boom, and ash and all."

"My wand." Harry stuttered with a surprised sound. "It's gone, boom. I don't have a wand, oh dear, that's definitely not good." By this point, Harry seemed to have gone into shock.

"Your wand went boom, how the hell did you do that. Here, I have a spare which should work, use this." Taking the proffered wand, Harry pointed the wand at the dummy, hoping not to blow this wand up as well. "Reducto." Once more the wand blew up, this time Croaker had a reason. "You're magic is still too unstable to be forced through a focus, it appears for the time being you'll be going wandless. I can't help you with that, so I'll send you off to Gringotts and let you stay there for the rest of the day. Enjoy yourself." With those words, he handed a sock to Harry, said "Adios." and sent Harry off to Diagon Alley unarmed. What could possibly go wrong?

Please review. I should update around Friday or Saturday. Check out my other story where Harry goes to middle earth. As always, tell me where I went wrong in this chapter.


	4. Chapter 4

Disclaimer: I really hate saying this but I do not now nor have I ever owned Harry Potter in any form other than a copy of the books and movies. I mean the first book came out when I was like 7 or 8. I wasn't that smart as a kid.

Chapter 3:

Harry portkeyed into Diagon Alley, or more precisely he portkeyed into a wall. That is to say the portkey dropped him off in the middle of the street, however Harry disagreed with portkeys and decided to do a somersault headfirst into a wall. Dazed, Harry attempted to regain his feet, only to stumble into a bin and fall on it. By this stage many people who were passing by had stopped to laugh at what appeared to be a drunken teenager. Upon realising they were laughing at their fallen hero, they laughed harder. Once more, Harry attempted to stand up, and this time managed, although he was slightly dazed. Remembering he was to go to Gringotts to gain access to his family vaults, he bagan to slowly make his way over to the majestic white building. He entered the door having completely ignored the sign about robbing the bank, it didn't stop Quirrel in first year so it seemed slightly pointless. Seeing that today was quite a busy day, he headed over to the shortest line which had 7 people in it not including Harry. Close to half an hour had passed before Harry had reached the front of the line. "Hello, I am here to get access to my family vaults, Mr... Ripguts?" said Harry, reading the goblins name of the template.

"Name."

"Harry Potter."

"Ah yes, the Potter boy, well we received a notification about your emancipation earlier. IRONHAMMER!" he shouted, "take Mr. Potter to Ragnok. Ragnok is the goblin that is in charge of Inheritance."

Following the short and stout creature through the maze that was Gringotts, Harry noticed one reason noone had ever sucessfully stolen something from Gringotts. They couldn't find their way through. Eventually, they came to a room that had a sign with the words INHERITANCE OFFICE engraved upon it in ornate gold writing. Ironhammer turned to Harry and told him to enter. Harry turned the handle of the door and entered the opulent room. It was obvious that the occupant of said room was very important and wealthy. He saw a fat and visibly repulsive goblin sitting behind the table, who gestured to a seat. Taking it, Harry told the goblin, "I'm Harry Potter. I was told to come here to gain access to my family vaults."

The goblin continued his work for a few minutes more before looking up at Harry and saying, "The Potter vaults. I had the ledger for it brought up." pointing a thin leather-bound book. "Well, take it and flick through it while I check if you are to be given access to anything else." Once more the goblin turned to his work, while Harry opened up the book to a page that simply said,

POTTER FAMILY VAULT

VAULT NUMBER 76

CONTAINS 1,400,000 GALLEONS (TO NEAREST 100,000)

He began to turn the pages finding only three more entries:

POTTER HEIRLOOMS

VAULT NUMBER 77

CONTAINS NUMEROUS OBJECTS

HARRY POTTER TRUST FUND

VAULT NUMBER 687

CONTAINS 50,000 GALLEONS, 1000 SICKLES AND 95 KNUTS

Looking back up, Harry realised that the goblin, Ragnok, had finished what he was doing and had pointed at a page saying:

HARRY POTTER,

LORD OF HOUSE POTTER AND

HEIR OF HOUSE BLACK.

"Why am I the heir of house Black." asked Harry, curious as to why he was heir to his Godfathers family, and what all this Lord business meant.

"Your Godfather, although originally disowned, was adopted by his mother after she heard he was a follower of Voldemort. His will stated that his possessions were to go to you, meaning you are his heir and hence, the heir of House Black." explained the goblin irritably.

"What does me being the head or heir of a house mean anyway?" queried Harry.

"If you are the head of a house, it means that you can organise contracts on your wards behalf, due to new laws, men and unmarried women over 17 are no longer subjected to this. It will also give you a certain amount of social prestige. As heir, it really only grants you access to family vaults and records, as well as more prestige. Also, as the head of a house or the heir of an house, and the last of your line, it will fall to you to fulfill any contracts or debts your house has. I have checked and there are none for House Potter or House Black. Would you like to make a withdrawal from your vaults?"

"Hmm, oh, yeah, please."

"Very well, exit the door and a goblin should be with you presently." said the goblin dismissively.

"Thanks." Having said that Harry exited the room and a moment later was joined by Ironhammer who led him to the carts. As they got the goblin asked what vault.

"Vault 687, and then 77 please."

A short time later they arrived outside of Harry's vault which Harry entered and filled a small bag with some of the numerous galleons from the mountain. He left and got into the cart to go to the Heirloom vault. On the journey, Harry was given a short introduction to magical creatures, specifically Dragons. And most of that was things like that dragon could kill you in 4 seconds, and that one has 4 ways of killing you. Apparently, Ironhammer really hated humans. When they eventually arrived at the vault, Harry got up and the gate swung open. Putting it down to the wonders of magic, Harry entered, only to find that it wasn't so much an heirloom vault as a vault of all the stuff we can't sell and don't want to throw out. There were a number of quarterstaffs (most broken), some old wands, a few paintings of the countryside (apparently done by a Potter) and a few musty old books written in latin. However, when he reached the corner of the vaults, he hit the jackpot. Old engagement and marriage rings were there for sentimental reasons, there was also a book on becoming an animagus, written by the Marauders. Thinking his tutor/teacher would be able to help him learn more about it, he took the book and slowly made his way to the exit, keeping his eyes out for anything valuable, there must be some reason noone got rid of this stuff. He sat down in the cart and began to read the beginning of the book, which was basically telling you that you needed to be good at transfiguration and have a lot of patience. He had just finished this chapter when he reached the end of the journey and got out, placing the book in his pocket. Just as he entered the lobby of Gringotts and was heading towards the exit, a goblin came towards him with a quill, telling him it was a portkey that would activate at 7:30 that night. He exited the bank to see that it was well after noon, possibly as late as 2 in the afternoon. Wondering how the time could have passed so quickly, he headed down Diagon Alley to his first port of call.

Please review. Tell me how to improve and give me any ideas you want me to include. Also, I'm thinking of adding a few more tasks to the Triwizard Cup, what do you think?


	5. Chapter 5

Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter, never have and most likely never will. The name of the website should give you a hint, ( for those of you who don't know), meaning I am a fan, not an owner.

Chapter 4

Harry exited the doors of Gringotts and began to walk down Diagon Alley towards the Leaky Cauldron, after all it was lunch time and he was a teenage boy, he's expected to think with his stomach. Seeing the crowds, Harry nervously patted his fringe ensuring his scar remained covered, what with all the fuss people made about him, he wanted to remain incognito and enjoy a quiet day shopping. Entering the Leaky Cauldron, Harry walked up to the counter and spoke to Tom, "Can I have a butterbeer and a sandwich, please?"

"Sure." Tom turned away, before turning back with a slightly abashed look on his face, "Sorry what kind of sandwich."

"Ham and cheese, please. Thanks Tom." Once more Tom turned away telling Harry he would deliver the food to him. Harry took a seat in the surprisingly full pub, and was quickly given his meal by Tom. "That'll be 24 sickles, please. Thank you." Tom said before leaving upon receiving the silver coins.

Harry turned to his food, and to any onlookers appeared to be a typical teenage boy devouring his lunch. Harry leaned back, feeling sated before forcing himself to his feet and back out into Diagon Alley. Thinking that while he was here, he might as well get his school books from Flourish and Blotts, and so headed for the bookstore. Seeing one of the shop workers simply standing around, Harry approached asking him what books he would need for this year, before following the attendant around and picking up the required books, before deciding to glance around and see if he could find anything on Magical Surges. Finding none, he approached the same attendant as before and asking. Seeing the blank face of the man, Harry guessed that this was one of those obscure parts of magic that few knew about and was unlikely to be found in a common bookstore. Unfortunately, the man also had no idea where he could find any information on the subject. Giving up, Harry decided to simply buy his books and leave, only to be faced with the conundrum of what to do with his books. The attendent was able to provide help on this occasion, shrinking them and placing them in a bag for Harry. Harry left the bookstore, and went into the apothecary across the street, to stock up for the year.

Entering, he smelt the pungent odor of the shop and resolved to spend as little time as possible in the establishment. He went around the shop, and picked up a junior's brewing kit, figuring it'd be good enough, and if not, well, he could simply sneak out of Hogwarts and get some from Hogsmeade. Paying for the brewer's kit, he left and looking around the alley, began to wander what he was going to do for the next couple of hours, before spotting Olivanders and remembering the fate of his old wand. Crossing the alley, he cut through the crowds, picking up words from the conversation, most of which made little sense. One word was repeated a number of time, Crum. What in the name of God was a Crum?

Having made it outside the slightly rundown shop, Harry entered the shop to be greeted by Mr Olivander.

"Hello there Mr. Potter. I hope nothing's wrong with your wand?" He asked, looking genuinely worried as to the state of his creation.

Sensing that wands meant a lot to the old man, Harry decided to go for the subtle approach, "It went boom."

"I beg your pardon." came the startled reply.

"Ihadamagicalsurge,usedthewand,then boom." mumbled Harry incomprehensively.

"You had a magical surge, which makes your magic highly unstable, and decided to cast a spell, and you wonder why it went boom. Are you naturally an idiot or do you have to work at it?" was the angry reply.

"I was wondering if I could get another one?" came Harry's nervous request.

"You blew up one wand because your magic was too unstable and immediately come to get a replacement, even though you're magic's unstable. Are you seriously that stupid?"

Seeing the anger on Olivander's face, Harry decided to simply leave and fled out the door, leaving behind a crazy old man who would be found several hours later muttering about stupid young boys killing his babies. Needless to say, this caused quite a reaction.

Harry was once again pondering what to do, he couldn't exactly do much in Diagon Alley, and entering Knockturn Alley without a wand simply quite stupid. Thinking quickly, Harry decided to leave the magical world for a day and enter the muggle world, and had made it to the Charing Cross Road, before realising he needed muggle money. Sheepishly, he returned to Gringotts to get his money exchanged before once more returning to the muggle world to explore.

Several hours later, Harry's feet hurt, his stomach was grumbling and he was insanely bored. There was very little to do in muggle London, as he didn't understand much of the stuff teenagers talked about and didn't want to waste money buying clothes as he had been warned by Croaker he would be going through growth spurts as a result of the magical surge, and so he had spent the last few hours wondering the streets before getting hopelessly lost. Seeing a McDonalds beside him, a place spoken highly of by his cousin, Harry entered to get his dinner. A Big Mac and a coke isn't the healthiest dinner in the world, but it was filling. Looking around for the time and seeing the portkey given to him by Croaker would activate in 5 minutes, he decided to leave. Outside he was able to see the clock ticking down the time until he arrived back in the Department of Mysteries, he decided to see if he could remember where he put the smelly old sock/magical marvel and began to rummage through his pockets, growing worried when he couldn't find it. Looking up and seeing the time had just turned half 7 and he was still in London, he feared the worst and began to panic about spending a night stranded in Muggle London before he felt a pull just under his navel and his surroundings blur.

With a bang he landed in a room, landed being a relative term seeing how he somehow managed midair gymnastics that would making Olympians proud, before landing on his head. Somewhat dazed, he looked up and saw an unfamilar man sitting in a chair, giving out a very menacing presence.

"Mr Potter, I presume?"

How was that? Was it Ok, probably not no. Sorry about the delay there but I assure you I am going to be able to update quite frequently now as I know exactly what happens from here to Hogwarts. Please review.


	6. Chapter 6

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, I do however own the plot of this story as well as the original characters in the story.

Chapter 5:

"Mr. Potter, I presume?"

At the man's statement, the only thought going through Harry's head was, "Well, this is embarrassing." Despite his embarassment, Harry was able to nod to the question and get a better look at the man. When standing, Harry guessed he would be about 6 foot tall, as well as having a well built frame. He was well muscled, but not as a bodybuilder, more like a dancer or a gymnast. He had dark brown hair with streaks of white over each ear, looking authentic rather than dyed, and his hazel eyes seemed to pierce through Harry's eyes and look directly at his soul. The man also wore what appeared to be a muggle suit, as well as looking impatient. Startled, Harry realised he had just been asked a question. "Sorry, what did you say?"

"I asked if you were going to stand up." Sheepishly, Harry stood up and realised this must be the man Croaker contacted to train him. Harry realised he probably hadn't made a good impression, being small and thin for his age and having landed on his head after portkeying. The man gestured to a seat, which Harry took.

"Croaker has asked me to take you on as an apprentice. Tell me why should I?" The man asked, raising an eyebrow at the end.

"Well, you should because it would... help me." came the weak answer from Harry. The man's only visible response was a further raising of his eyebrow and a slight unfocusing of his eyes. Whatever he realised then brought him to a conclusion. "Get your things and come back here in 5 minutes." As he finished the sentence, the man left the room leaving behind a confused Harry who was thinking, "What is going on? Who was that?" Before realising he had been told to do something, and running from the room. Seeing a cloaked woman who looked like Katala, one of the unspeakables Harry had spoken to, he ran up to her and asked her to help her find where his stuff was and where Hedwig was. The woman began to lead Harry through the maze that was the department of mysteries, before entering the room that he had woken up in. After Harry had grabbed his stuff, he was led back to the room he had just come from. When he entered the room, he realised that he hadn't found Hedwig and turning back to the woman, asked her where Hedwig was. The woman replied, "When we took your stuff from your room, your owl flew out the window. Most likely she'll turn up wherever you go."

Harry once more entered the room and took a seat and as soon as he had done so, the man who would be his new tutor entered the room, walked up to him and said, "We're going to apparate to my house, OK." Seeing Harry's blank face, he elaborated, "Apparating is a wizarding form of transportation." The man touched Harry's shoulders and apparated. Harry felt like he was being squeezed through a tiny tube more suited for mice than humans, before hitting the ground heavily but staying upright. Looking around, Harry saw a large mansion surrounded by grass and trees. "We won't be staying here long, only long enough to complete a few tasks." said his tutor leading him towards the house. "By the way, you can call me Nicholas." Entering the house, Harry realised just how wealthy Nicholas was. The hall was lavishly decorated screaming comfort and opulence. Walking down the hall, Nicholas turned to a door and opened it, showing stairs leading down into the ground.

"Come on." prompted Nicholas already heading down the stairs. Harry began to follow him down the stairs leading into a basement devoid of everything but two chairs. Seeing Nicholas take one of the chairs, Harry took the other one.

"Due to the instability of your magic and the length of time after that which would be required for you to be able to cast spells, you won't be able to go to Hogwarts this year. Now to remove you from Hogwarts and you not having completed any O.W.L.s, you would have to either have a note from a registered Healer saying you would be unable to cope with the school or have entered an apprenticeship. Neither of these are feasible options due to the first meaning you would be pretty defenseless and being made a ward of the government and thus a prime target for assassination by one of Voldemort's followers who escaped Azkaban and the second meaning your master would have to be named, and I am considered dead by the wizarding world so we can't do that, we now have two options, you could be kidnapped by me except that means you wouldn't be allowed to leave the manor or we can make sure you can return for a fourth year at Hogwarts."

"But you just said I wouldn't be able to. What?"

"No you won't be able to return to Hogwarts if you only have a month and half until you need to return." Nicholas looked like he wanted Harry to realise something here, but seeing Harry's confused face, realised he wouldn't. "Time travel, you idiot."

"With a time turner. Oh, right. That could work. Do you have one?" At this question, Nicholas appeared to be getting quite annoyed.

"Not turning back time, actual time travel."  
"How does that work?" Was Harry's confused question at the same time as thinking, "Is time travel not impossible? I thought it was just science fiction."  
"I use magic to transport us back in time a couple of years to train you, and then you return to Hogwarts saying you had a growth spurt. It's not extremely complicated, it just requires a lot of magic. Any questions?" Without waiting for an answer, Nicholas simply stood up waving his hand at the ground dispelling an illusion showing 7 pentagram, one in the centre with the other 6 surrounding it, all with a large number of runes drawn around them. All in all, it looked incredibly complicated. Nicholas stood in the centre pentagram, and gestured for Harry to stand beside him. Nicholas stood silently for a moment before he began to glow, the air felt saturated with magic as though it would suddenly explode. Harry felt the incredible amount of magic in the air, and compared it to Hogwarts which was the only real magical place he knew well. Hogwarts had always felt powerful, but when compared to this, it was like comparing a bump on the ground to a mountain. Suddenly, Harry felt the magic centre itself in Nicholas, and felt afraid. Nicholas looked like a magical bomb. Then Nicholas began to mutter and scream words Harry didn't understand, causing the magic to flow around the two. A few moments later, and the sweat was pouring down Nicholas' brow, but he continued speaking, increasing the amount of magic in the air, before it seemed to explode. Harry's surroundings blurred before settling back into what they had been with one noticeable difference. The pentagrams were gone. With a huge number of questions, like how Nicholas was so powerful, on his lips, Harry turned to Nicholas who waved a hand at Harry causing his eyelids to feel impossibly heavy, as well as fatigue to assault Harry's mind and body. Slowly, his eyes closed and Harry fell to the ground asleep.

Well, what do you think? I don't think much of it. I knew what I wanted to happen but I just couldn't make it happen. I will be coming back to this later, but for now please review.


	7. Chapter 7

Disclaimer: If it's not obvious yet, I don't own Harry Potter, that privlege lies with JK Rowling, who is both a woman and rich, and I am neither.

Chapter 6

Harry awoke suddenly, not due to a noise or even water being thrown over him. No, instead he was awoken by a psychopathic old, at least mentally if not physically, man prodding him in the stomach.

"Good, you're awake. You were sleeping long enough-" Nicholas began before being interrupted by Harry.

"Sleeping long enough. Only because you put me to sleep." Harry yelled.

"Ah, well that was because it was late and you have an early start and needed your sleep. I'm not answering your questions now, it's day time, I will answer as many of them tonight as we have time for. Now get changed into the clothes Dippy laid out, and then come get your breakfast." When Harry made no effort to get up, Nicholas sent a stinging hex at him before adding, "Quickly." and leaving.

Grumbling incomprehensively about annoying pensioners, Harry slowly dragged himself out of bed, before getting changed into the tracksuit bottoms and the plain black T-shirt left out by "Dippy", who, based on the weird name, was most likely a house-elf. Having gotten changed, Harry left the bedroom he was in, and made his way into the kitchen, which was quite easy as it was directly opposite his room with the door open. Entering he saw a small meal set out, consisting of a bowl of Cornflakes with milk, some bread and a glass of orange juice. Digging into the surprising unsoggy Cornflakes, Harry realised just how hungry he actually was, and began to devour the breakfast. Just as he had finished the last bite of the toast and was leaning back in his seat, Nicholas walked in.

"Oh, you've finished, time to start the day. Now follow me so I can show you what I want you to do this morning." Following Nicholas, Harry left the room and was taken into another room which had 100 lit candles lined up in a row.

"Your task for today is to extinguish all 100 of the candles so that none of them are lit. You can only use one method." Then Nicholas walked up to the first candle and extinguished it using his thumb and one of his fingers. "Now after every candle, I want you to use a different finger, and once you have used each finger on your hand, swap to the other hand. Come find me when you're done." Having said his piece, Nicholas left the room.

Thinking this was an easy task, Harry approached the first candle which Nicholas had relight and extinguished it, before moving on to the next candle. He had just finished the twelth candle, after remembering to change fingers and hand periodically, when he noticed the first candle had relight itself. Thinking little of it, he went back and extinguished when he noticed the second candle had also relit. So he extinguished it and then the third candle relit itself. Getting very angry Harry also put out that candle only for the next candle to relit itself. This repeated itself until Harry once more saw the first candle relit.

Some few hours later and Harry was seriously annoyed, he had yet to get past the sixteenth candle without the first one relighting, and had considered telling Nicholas what was happening when he realised how that conversation would go:  
"Hi, Nicholas?"  
"Yes, what seems to be the problem?"

"The candles keep relighting." Really, there was no way that conversation could make him seem like anything other than a whiny brat, and so Harry continued attempting to put out all the candles, before he came to an epiphany, it was like a lightbulb just turned on his head, he would simply go through all 100 without stopping and see what happens then. That didn't work, honestly, the first sign of failure should have been thinking about lightbulbs inside his head.

Eventually, Nicholas reentered the room looking disappointed, but saying, "Lunchtime." before leading Harry back into the kitchen where egg sandwiches were laid out.

Sitting down, Harry began eating the sandwiches and very quickly had finished them and the water that had appeared beside the plate. Again, just as he finished, Nicholas walked in the door. "All right, I have a new task." That was all he had to say on the matter before leading him outside and into the forest that was beside the house, oddly enough, Harry hadn't noticed it the day before, shaking his head to clear his thoughts, he realised Nicholas had gotten quite some distance ahead of him.

They entered the forest, and walked a short distance in before they came to a small clearing with a tree stump about half a metre high in the centre.

"Sit on it, and listen." Was Nicholas cryptic instruction.

"Listen to what?" was Harry's annoyed response. He had been thinking he would do something important after wasting hours putting out candles.

"The forest." came Nicholas voice as he left the clearing, heading back the way he came. Visibly irritated, Harry nonetheless, settled down in a lotus position on the tree stump, before listening to the forest, or rather attempting to. A short while later, he realised it was harder than it sounded, as there were so many quiet noises he had to strain to hear them, and could only do so if he concentrated on a single noise to the exclusion of all else. Finally after what seemed like a millennium, he heard the sound of a twig and Nicholas strode into view. "Dinner time." Was all he said to Harry before heading back into the house, grumbling once more about annoying old men, he followed Nicholas into the house. Entering the kitchen, he saw a meal set out for him, consisting of chicken breast with gravy, potatoes and turnip. Wondering how the Nicholas or more accurately Dippy the invisible possible house-elf knew what he liked, Harry began to eat. Eventually, he finished and was taken away by Nicholas into a small sitting room where a game of chess was set up. Seeing Nicholas take a seat at the white side of the chess set, Harry sat down at the black side and began to play. Immediately, Nicholas asked, "What did you learn about the forest?"

"There are many animals in there, all of whom have learnt to be as quiet as possible, and it was a struggle to hear them."  
"From what you heard, what did you understand?"  
"Very little." was the sheepish reply.

A short time after this, Nicholas said, "Don't you have any questions for me?"  
That question seemed to be the catalyst forcing Harry's built up questions to simply tumble out of him. "What did you do last night? Why am I here? Where is here? What is the point of extinguishing candles? Why am I listening to a forest and why the hell are we playing chess?"  
Nicholas smiled, with an all too familiar twinkle in his eyes before answering, "Well, last night we time travelled and are currently in the year 1987 which is 7 years in the past. You are here to learn what I have to teach and we are at my home. You extinguish the candles and listen to the forest because that is needed for you to learn from me, and we are playing chess because it sharpens the mind and it allows us to converse and do something constructive at the same time, teaching you to multi-task."

"O.K, so you're telling me I will return to fourth year at Hogwarts as a 21 year old? Isn't that kinda perverted?"  
"Basically, yes. And it's not perverted or anything, a few hundred years ago everyone in your year would have been married or at least betrothed, some in your year probably are betrothed."

"Right. Who exactly are you?"

"I was most recently called Nicholas Flamel, and before that simply Nick."  
"If you're Nicholas Flamel, then where is your wife?"

At this question, the mirth that had been in Nicholas's eyes while playing the game disappeared, as he answered, "She died."

Realising now wasn't the time to make idle small talk, Harry turned his full attention back to the game only to lose four moves later. At this point, Nicholas proved to be a pretty good teacher as he showed Harry where he went wrong and showed him how he could have escaped the checkmate. They played another couple of games before heading to bed as Harry was to wake up early the next morning.

The next three days past the same as the first, except the intial task in the morning changed. The second morning, he was taken into a long room, with a thin line running down the middle and told to walk the full length of the line and if at any stage he moved off it, a siren would sound and he would have to return to the beginning. However, once more the seemingly easy task proved much harder as incredibly powerful winds struck out at him from one side then the other, unpredictably and forcing him off the line.

The third day, he had been told to push a 30 kilogram stone up a relatively high mountain, and set it to rest at the top before getting Nicholas to show him. Initially believing the mountain would keep getting higher, Harry began to slowly push the stone up the mountain, only to reach the top within twenty minutes. Setting the stone at rest and ensuring it wouldn't move, Harry turned his back and walked down the mountain to get Nicholas only to see the stone come tumbling down beside him. Everytime, he pushed it to the top, it would fall back down.

The fourth morning, he had been given two bowls, one full of water and the other not, and told to transfer the water from one bowl to the next by dipping his finger into the water and then when a drop had formed on his finger drop it off into the other bowl. When Nicholas returned, the second bowl was half full, but the first was completely full. That night, while playing chess, Harry asked, "What can these impossible tasks possibly teach me?"

"What have you learned?" was the reply. One thing Harry had learned about Nicholas, he liked answering questions with another question leading Harry to the answer without telling him it. So, Harry leant back in his chair thinking, and eventually answered, "That you shouldn't assume things will be easy, and to look beyond the obvious. But how does that teach me about magic?"

"In time, you will learn. This will help you learn to control some of your gifts, as your magic is too unstable to do magic and won't be for another couple of months."  
"Well, shouldn't I be learning theory or something?"  
"I am to teach you magic. Do you think the first wizards knew theory or do you think they simply used their magic?"

"They simply used their magic."

**Please review, and if anyone wants to guess what these tasks will do to help him, feel free to say. I think this is my longest chapter, at least in this story if not ever.**


	8. Chapter 8

Disclaimer: For anyone who doesn't yet know, I do not now nor have I ever owned Harry Potter in any form except that of a book. I do not own the canon plot or the characters, but I do own the plot of this story.

Chapter 7

A month had passed with the 4 day cycle continuing, and Harry had made very little progress in his tasks, he could only manage 3 or 4 steps in a row in the windy room, could only extinguish 24 candles without the first relighting, and had yet to fully move the water from one bowl to another. The only task he had any progress in was pushing the stone up the hill, he could now do it faster but it would still fall down, despite everything he tried. Listening to the forest was also difficult, although he was able to hear individual sounds of the animals quite easily now, however this failed to please Nicholas.

During their third game of chess that night, Nicholas said, "I'm changing your routine slightly."

Estatic at the possibility of a break from the monotony that was his daily life, Harry excititly replied, "Really, can I do magic now? Am I learning something fun or interesting?"

Chuckling at the expression on Harry's face, Nicholas continued, "As you may have noticed, you have gotten stronger pushing that stone up the mountain. And in such a short time, such an improvement is... unprecedented. My only conclusion is that your magic is improving your body, so we are going to help it. You will still be doing the same four tasks in the morning, and listening in the afternoon, but instead of eating dinner at half 6 and then playing chess for 3 hours, you will instead begin jogging, by doing half an hour before dinner, which will be at 5 from now on, and another half hour afterwards. Then from about 6 to half 7, I will be training you physically. By that I mean, you will be working out; press-ups, sit-ups, weight lifting and so on for the first half hour to warm up, and then learning various martial arts."  
"Martial arts. Why do I need to know them?" was Harry's suspicious reply.

Nicholas thought for a second, before saying, "Imagine Voldemort, when he returns, has managed to capture one of your friends and you want to rescue him. You slip into the prison and cast a spell to take out a guard, Voldemort being as paranoid as he is, will know due to his wards which detect all magic usage. You then have a much harder task as Voldemort and all the Death Eaters will know you're there. However, if you knock him out through muggle means, he'll never know. It also will help you defend yourself against muggles."

And so Harry agreed, and his daily routine was changed slightly and continued onwards in this pattern for quite some time, four months to be exact, and the only real improvement in the past 4 months had been the physical training at night, surprising Harry was very good at muggle fighting. However finally at the end of his tether, Harry asked Nicholas, "Why the hell am I doing this? You could at least teach me something other than how to amuse myself." He was currently pushing a stone, that had steadily been getting bigger for the past few months, up the mountain.

"Alright, if you don't want to, then stop." was the reply.

Shocked, Harry did so, only for the stone to fall down the mountain. "Oh, come on." said Harry as he hurried after the stone. Eventually, he had pushed it back to the bottom of the mountain unwilling to allow this stupid task to beat him, when Nicholas said, "Don't push it up, close your eyes. Touch the stone. Do you remember the sensation in your hands as you push it, the straining of your muscles forcing it higher. Feel it. Immerse yourself in it."

As Nicholas spoke, Harry felt the feeling he associated with pushing the stone, the burning he felt in his arms after hours of pushing, the feeling of the rough rock against his calloused hands and the way his feet scrabbled for purchase against the ground as he moved up, and then Nicholas spoke again, "Now look."

Harry opened his eyes at the same time as he realised that he was actually feeling like he was pushing the stone up, despite no longer feeling like he was touching it. He saw the stone was no longer in front of him and looked up, seeing the stone flying up the mountain before resting at the top.

Shocked at what had just happened, he turned to Nicholas asking, "What did I just do?"

"You completed the task." was the snide reply.

"Yeah, I got that, but how?"  
"You are an elemental, meaning you can... bend the elements to your will, which you just did. You knew what it felt like when you moved the stone up the mountain, and your abilities did it. This was the only way to do it as the stone was enchanted to always fall down unless it was moved up by an elemental."  
"I can control the elements? Is that what those stupid tasks were for?"  
"Yes. It is how you should be trained. Given a task that's impossible without using your abilities and eventually, you'd use them out of sheer frustration. And once you've done it once, you can do it again. Every fourth morning, I will be helping you improve your control over each of the elements, as you learn how to use each in turn. However, your afternoon task in the forest, well you still have a long way to go."

The next day was the day with the candles, and as Harry entered the room, Nicholas was standing in front of him.

"This time imagine the feeling of the candle just as it touches your hands, but before you extinguish it."  
Obliging, Harry closed his eyes to remember, and once more managed to remember the feeling of the flame. Soon he felt the slight burning of the candle against his skin, the faint heat given out by the flame and the feeling of life in the fire. Once more he was told to open his eyes, only to see a tiny ball of fire hovering around each of his hands. Thinking quickly about how to extinguish them without being told, Harry closed his eyes and remembered the feeling of putting out each candle, and slowly the fireball diminished in size before disappearing.

"Good, now to finish this task, I want you to approach the first candle, and remember what it is like to extinguish the candle."  
Harry did so and was rewarded when the candle was put out, Nicholas spoke up before leaving, "Do this to all the candles."

That day was the first time all 100 candles were put out at the same time.

The next day, was the day with the bowls.

"Do move the water from one bowl to another in order to sucessfully complete this task, you must move all the water at once."  
"That's impossible with one finger." Harry said despondantly.

"Says the wizard." was Nicholas' casual reply.

Sheepishly, Harry looked down.

"Alright, follow my instructions. Touch the tip of your finger to the surface of the water but do not lift it. Now imagine the feeling of lifting one drop, and then increase that feeling. Now lift."

Harry did so and managed to lift a significant amount of water, but there was still over half left to go, when before Harry's eyes, the bowl refilled.

"That's O.K. Learning to control the elements is hard, and apparently water is your weak spot. Keep trying."

Harry did so, and made impressive progress and just as Nicholas returned to drag Harry into lunch, he managed to move all the water sucessfully before slumping down, exhausted. Nicholas still forced him to carry out the rest of the day as normal.

Harry awoke early on the fourth day, which was the day he was most looking forward to. The day of air, the idea of mastering an ability that might lead to him flying without a broom appealed immensely to Harry and he was bouncing off the walls in excitement. So, when he was taken outside rather than into the normal room, he was confused and annoyed.

"You are going to learn how to conjure wind first. Now, summon up all your memories of the wind, when you fly, when you're in that room, anything."  
Harry did so, imaging the feeling of the wind hitting his face as he flew, the feeling of the wind buffeting him as he struggled to move forward, when he slowly felt a wind growing around him that rapidly grew in strength until it was nearly forcing Harry to his knees.

"Control it. Get rid of it, but keep calm." was Nicholas' command, as he stood on his feet seemingly unbothered about the entire affair.

Slowly, Harry conjured up feelings of a gentle breeze that would cause a rustling of leaves without moving trees, and slowly the powerful winds died down.

He then entered the air room, filled with hope and using his newfound abilities, quietened the wind before walking in a straight line down the length of the room.

That night as the two played chess after training, Harry asked, "Why did you only help me today?"

Nicholas thought for a second, picking the right words, "You needed to learn to ask for help. It was a test of character, to see what type of person you were. From those few seconds, I was able to tell you were determined to the point of being foolhardy, unwilling to accept defeat and fiercely independent. I mean it took you over a month to ask your teacher for help. A sign of a great man is that he can accept other people's help as well as their advice. When you didn't give up, but kept going despite all the times you failed, I decided you would be worthy of learning what I know, my heir if you like."  
"All right, and being able to control the elements is great, but what's the downside?"  
"You will need to devote a lot of concentration to the elements so that you don't lose control, you will never be able to combine all the elements and if you do, you'll die along with pretty much everything in about 150 metres. Also, you have to keep a close rein on your emotions so that your abilities don't act out, but I will teach all this, sort of, and how to further your control of the elements." Nicholas made one more move on the chessboard, before saying, "Check mate."

**Well, what do you think? I decided to post this and the chapter of my other story as soon as I wrote them as I'm moving tomorrow and I'm not sure when I can post again. So obviously, the chapters aren't very good but on the plus side, it is my only chapter that's over 2,000 words. And please review. I know I didn't explain the concept of controlling the elements very well, it was a concept in my head and I knew how it worked, I simply struggled with verbalising it.**


	9. Chapter 9

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, that privilege belongs to J.K. Rowling who incidentally doesn't have a middle name.

Chapter 8

Harry leapt to the side, avoiding a fireball before sending a buffet of air at his adversary. He'd been fighting for just over an hour, a personal best and the effort was definitely taking its toll on him as sweat ran down his face and he panted even though his enemy still looked calm and collected, with just as much energy as he had begun with.

The last 6 months had been hard, with Nicholas putting him through his paces in working with his elemental ability and he'd found he had different abilities in the elements. He was equal in sheer power to Nicholas in fire, which was not inconsiderable when you think about how he gained his second name due to his until now unparalleled ability, he was also very powerful in air, more so than Nicholas, which wasn't surprising giving his natural flying ability, on the other hand, his ability with earth was dismal with Harry struggling to master anything else than the basics. Water was also a weakness for Harry as he was below average in his ability, he could summon up shields of water if it was close to him and he could push water away from himself, effectively creating his personal oxygen bubble underground. Nicholas had explained that no elemental, or at least none so far, was strong in all the elements as by their very nature they were opposites and so no one person's personality would be suited to them all. Despite this, Harry had still been pushed to his limits in attempting to master this very mentally and physically draining art. In battle when speed was necessary, physical movements were needed to direct the elements in the way you wanted them to go, as well as watching the other person for attacks and needing to summon up the necessary shields or if need be leaping away.

Harry was dragged from his musings as Nicholas manipulated the earth around Harry to trap his legs so he couldn't sidestep attacks or dodge very well, luckily Harry managed to stop it before it got his arms but was unable to reverse the trap with Nicholas actively working against him. Seconds later he gave up and began to simply launch attacks at Nicholas, determined to finally land a decent hit on him. Quickly weaving his arms, he began to conjure up fire and flung it at Nicholas, fireballs being one of the most simple attacks, while slowly building up a reservoir of water from under the ground to where it began to pool behind him and hopefully out of sight of Nicholas. Once it reached an appropriate size, Harry throw up a wall of fire a mere metre from his face to stop any attacks, or at least that was the plan, while melding the water into a large ball along with numerous smaller balls hidden behind it.

Suddenly, Harry flung his arms forward and the firewall began to make it's way towards Nicholas as Nicholas attempted to negate it, suddenly, Harry changed the wall of fire into numerous balls and sent them flying at Nicholas although some flew around him and flew at him from behind, while also unleashing his entire water weapon arsenal. Harry caught a quick glimpse of Nicholas' face, and saw a look of surprise on his face and felt a flush of pride that he had shocked his master, which quickly changed to dismay as Nicholas quickly leapt into the air and used the air to float higher. With a grunt of exertion, Harry redirected his attacks to hit Nicholas who flew to the side, allowing the attacks to simply fly upwards and began to prepare to launch an attack at Harry. Harry leapt into action, sending numerous fireballs at Nicholas, meaning Nicholas was limited to equally quick attacks as he defended himself, while this was happening, Harry called his attacks back down to the ground and towards Nicholas, while attempting to distract him. Nicholas, however, was equal to the attack, doing an aerial back flip evading the attacks which hit the ground before Harry could react. There was an explosion as the attacks hit the ground, sending dust everywhere, obscuring Harry's vision. As Harry caused gusts of wind to circle around him to send the dust away from him, he inadvertently gave away his position as he realised when he was knocked out by an incredibly accurate rock fired by Nicholas.

Blackness! His eyelids were incredibly heavy as he attempted to wake up. Slowly though, he forced his way back to consciousness and saw Nicholas sitting near him.

"Good. You're awake." began Nicholas.

Harry replied only with a grunt, as Nicholas continued, "You did very well today, all you can do to improve your ability is practising so, you can begin to learn magic now, but we'll still do element training in the morning, your meditation in the forest before lunch time and then your martial arts in the evening."

Harry, again, only grunted. "Well, there's a tree stump with your name on it."

Sighing, Harry forced himself to stand and begin to walk into the forest. This listening was one thing that had not improved over the last half a year, he was slowly improving in his elemental training, as evidenced by Nicholas believing he was capable enough to begin magical training, and he was getting much better in martial arts to the point where he was able to beat Nicholas around 2 out of every 15 times, which was very good considering Nicholas had been learning to fight muggle style for over a century, plus having been in very good shape before that when compared to Harry. However, this whole listening thing wasn't going very well, his senses were more acute now which is what Harry thought Nicholas wanted, however Nicholas wasn't happy even when Harry listed everything he heard and saw and smelt.

Sighing, Harry threw himself down on the stump preparing for another few hours of monotony.

Later that day, after listing everything Harry had learned from listening and then eating lunch, Nicholas had brought Harry into the study and sat him down on the chair.

"O.K. Your magic is pretty stable now, but you have very little control of it, meaning you're going to have to, essentially, redo most of your Hogwarts education before we can move on.""I don't have a wand." was Harry's bland reply.

"I'm aware of that." retorted Nicholas. "I'm eventually going to teach you to use as many spells as possible wandlessly as it improves your control, and because you don't have a wand, you'll use a generic wand."

"Generic wand?"

"Basically an ordinary wand that you can use. It won't be attuned to you or even have a great connection with you but you'll be able to use it. It means because you'll struggle to cast spells a little more, you'll have to work harder at the spells and when you eventually make your own wand you'll be much better with it."

"How will I make a wand?"

"That's not important right now, but let's just say it'll take quite some time. Follow me." commanded Nicholas before he turned towards a door Harry hadn't noticed before. Nicholas strode before, opened and walked inside and Harry followed slowly.

Entering the room, Harry glanced around and saw a number of glass cabinets lined up against the wall. Upon closer inspection, he realised each cabinet included a number of wands each with a plaque beneath them along with a hand drawn portrait.

"Whose wands are these?" asked Harry, as he examined the cabinets.

"Perenelle's and my descendants." was the curt reply. Harry glanced at Nicholas upon hearing the sorrowful tone in Nicholas' voice. "All of them are dead now." Nicholas continued.

Only then did Harry remember that Nicholas' wife was dead and as he was the oldest person alive, he had probably buried enough friends and family for a dozen people. Slowly, Nicholas opened up a cabinet and reverently picked up the first wand, before slowing handing it to Harry with the admonishment, "Only point or wave it at that wall." while pointing towards an empty space. Harry did so, and nothing happened. Nicholas took the wand back and replaced it with another, taking great care as he did so. Wand after wand, there was no reaction and Nicholas' face did not change from its stony countenance. Finally after trying what must have been the 20th wand, Harry glowed slightly as the wand connected with his magic slightly.

"It was my grandson, Albert's. He was a genius, became a famous muggle scientist. 9 inches long and with the core of a hair from a veela who was going to marry Albert before dying. Treat it well, this is my last momento of him."

Harry smiled and said, "Of course." before being led back into the study where Nicholas produced a book and put it on the table.

"Now let us begin with "Wingardium Leviosa. And remember, swish and flick."

Harry groaned but a dark look from Nicholas silenced him and he quickly got to work with his generic wand that felt like plain wood in his hand compared to his old wand.

**Sorry about the delay but I just couldn't get this chapter to work right. Please review;**

**Also, I know I'm not supposed to do this but Fierkraag left a review and disabled private messages so I couldn't reply any other way.**

**Anyway, Fierkraag, I didn't say Harry had inherited anything from Sirius he will, but he has been named his heir and because in my story Sirius is the Lord of House Black, Harry is therefore the Heir of House Black, so therefore Harry is the Lord of House Potter, because he is the next in the line of ascendancy, and the Heir of House Black which is really only a formal title, similar to being the Heir to a Throne. **

**Who Harry's former magical guardian is won't be revealed until later, as in I haven't quite decided as it's really only a minor detail as to whether Sirius is because he's Harry's Godfather or whether Dumbledore is because he's Harry's Headmaster and thus would be acting magical guardian. Either way, it isn't very important to my story so I didn't need to add it in.**

**Author Note: 189**


	10. Chapter 10

Disclaimer: No matter how much I wish it were otherwise, I do not and most likely never will own Harry Potter. It belongs to J.K. Rowling and will belong to her family after she dies, much to the dismay of many.

Chapter 9

Harry sat on the tree stump, in the clearing of the forest beside Nicholas Flamel's house, listening or, according to Nicholas, failing to listen to the forest and all it's inhabitants. As he sat, his mind wandered as it often did when occupied with nothing but the chirping of crickets, or birds singing to one another, and he began to think back upon the past two years he had spent with Nicholas Flamel; he had been trained in the usage of the elements, and could now fight Nicholas to a standstill 8 times out of 10, however Nicholas was still undefeated. He was now at the boundaries of his elemental ability and had learned all that Nicholas could teach him, although he had been given the admonishment that Harry should still experiment with his abilities to find new methods of using them. He now stood 5 foot 8, a somewhat average height and apparently the tallest he would ever be according to Nicholas, and thanks to his Martial Arts training, was also well-muscled, but not overly bulky, more wiry in the way of a dancer or a sprinter. Martial Arts was also another thing he was progressing well in, according to Nicholas, he was capable of defeating close to all First Dán Black Belts of any of the Martial Arts Harry studied, and a match for most of those at Second Dán. Despite this, he was still unable to land a hit on Nicholas unless Nicholas wanted Harry to hit him.

Magical studies had also gone well, even with a generic wand that wasn't suited to him, he was capable of casting most spells learned up until NEWT level, however, many spells Hogwarts students learnt, he didn't as his magical studies was geared towards combat and not keeping a house. As such, many charms were considered unnecessary although some minor jinxes and charms were taught to him because of the speed they could be cast at. Transfiguration, on the other hand, was more tiered, i.e. you had to be able to cast the most basic spells to be able to attempt the more advanced spells and so Harry was taught all the Transfiguration a NEWT student would be taught, alongside some more complicated spells. More recently, he had begun duelling Nicholas, who once more showed his ability in all things magical by duelling without moving, and often without shielding. He accomplished this by hitting Harry's infrequent attacks with stunners, effectively neutralising them. After the short duel, Harry would be shown what he did wrong, how to correct it and then a few combat spells, before repeating the duel.

Despite his rapid success in everything else, Harry could not accomplish this task of sitting in the forest, listening, in reality, Harry wasn't entirely sure what he was supposed to do, so Harry used this time to organise his thoughts and then listen for the last hour or so, attempting to kill time.

Currently, he was sitting with his eyes closed concentrating on his surroundings, and began to hear deer running nearby, as well as the soft swoosh of birds gliding. Slowly, in his mind's eyes, Harry began to visualise the birds and the deer, and everything else he could hear. Slowly, the animals began to move around as Harry added more and more detail to this image in his head. As he concentrated on his image, he saw something he hadn't heard. Nicholas was slowly making his way through the forest towards Harry, before stopping just outside the clearing, apparently watching Harry.

Opening his eyes, he called, "Hello, Nicolas. Enjoying the view?" However, he saw nothing before the air began to shimmer, and Nicholas appeared.

"Not really, no. Though I am curious as to how you knew I was there. I was invisible, and made no noise." despite the curious nature of the sentence, there was a glint in Nicholas' eye that said he had a suspicion but wanted it to be confirmed.

"I saw you in my mind." Nicholas smiled at Harry's reply, confirming Harry's belief of Nicolas' foreknowledge.

"2 years, 1 month and 6 days."

"I'm sorry?" was Harry's confused and startled reply.

"It's how long I've waited for that answer."

"If you'd told me that's what you wanted in the first place, I would have told you it within a month." was Harry's angry response.

"But you would have lied, or fabricated something." was Nicholas' benevolent reply, although the quirk at the corner of Nicholas' mouth suggested he was enjoying Harry's annoyance a little bit too much. "You needed to discover this on your own. What you did was legilimency at it's most basic and pure. Legilimency is the ability to sense other sentient beings around yourself, and on occasion, scan their surface thoughts to find out what their thinking. One of Legilimancies perversities is that, if one is skilful enough, they can invade your mind and go through all of your memories. It is, however, quite mentally draining and so not many are able to get the mental finesse and strength necessary. It was invented by hunters who had magic, when they required on meat to survive. It was a survival instinct, allowing them to find prey easily."

"Sounds invasive.""A little, however, there is a defence to it, called Occlumency, which I'll also be teaching you. Essentially, it allows you to redirect a legilimency probe and show the other person what you want them to see. False memories and misdirection are far more effective than shoving the person out of your mind, or building barriers around your mind. You do that and that person realises you know occlumency and will know you're hiding something and attack harder, whereas misdirection, if done properly, means the other person is completely unaware of what you're doing and thinks what you show him is true."

"Cunning." Nicholas smiled at Harry's response.

"You'll enjoy this, or at least, I will."

And so began the mental part of Harry's training, previously the time dedicated to sitting listening to the forest was now being used to train Harry in Occlumency and Legilimency, with frequently one-sided mental battles occurring as Harry attempted to push Nicholas' probe away from certain things he had been asked to protect, towards a false memory. It was a game of sorts, Dippy would tell Harry something, which could be as bland as, "I like yellow." and then Harry would try and hide it from Nicholas, or vice versa where Harry would try and get the answer from Nicholas, who of course, wasn't using the full extent of his mental abilities so Harry could have some sort of chance.

SCENE BREAK

Harry conjured a tiger to combat the cheetah Nicholas had conjured, even as he leapt aside, avoiding a swarm of bees. The duo were currently engaged in a "specific training match." A specific training match had been Nicolas' idea, they would duel using only one form of magic, either charms or transfiguration, in an attempt to defeat one another. One exception to the rule was a single stunner or a shield, i.e. if someone was pinned to the ground or very distracted, the other person could send a single stunner at them, but was unable to send another for at least 5 seconds, to ensure the magical discipline they were supposed to be using, was used. Banishers and summoners were also allowed during transfiguration battles, allowing them to conjure blocks of wood and banish them at the other person

Harry quickly summoned 2 dozen fireflies to engage the bees, hoping to set them on fire and kill them, before turning to Nicholas who had just conjured a stone golem. Harry ran at the golem, which swung it's arm at Harry, who was able to jump onto the slow moving appendage, before sprinting up the golem arms and conjuring a giant needle and banishing it into the golem's face. Harry grabbed the needle which was sticking out of the golem's nose before flinging himself into the air, his momentum carrying himself over Nicholas' head, and then firing a stunner. Nicholas' turned incredibly quickly, before yelling, "Protego." causing the stunner to be repelled back at Harry. Harry sidestepped his redirected stunner, while conjuring up a glass pane, which broke under the force of Nicholas' stunner. Harry ducked his head to avoid the stunner, before banishing the glass shards at Nicholas, who conjured giant birds to take the hit. Unfortunately, all the glass did was annoy the giant eagles, who flew straight at Harry, who conjured a giant granite wall, which the eagles flew into, dazing them. Harry banished the wall at Nicholas, who was forced to conjure a rhino and compel it to run at the wall, breaking it, before continuing on at Harry. Harry grimaced before leaping in to the air, where the birds proceeded to dive-bomb him, some quick wand work meant each bird fell to the ground with an arrow in their neck. Harry smiled before being knocked out by Nicholas' stunner, which he hadn't noticed.

"Wakey, wakey." Nicholas' smug voice greeted Harry as he slowly raised his head.

"Another few seconds and I would have had you right where I wanted you." replied Harry dazedly.

"Where's that? Winning?" came the wry reply

"I was lulling you into a false sense of security when the sun blinded me, allowing you to get lucky, old man."

Nicholas laughed, "You're as witty as ever so your fine." Nicholas stood up. "It's the summer before your fourth year. The Weasley's sent a letter wanting to know if you can come to the World Cup with them. It arrived while you were lulling me into a false sense of security.""But I've got so much more to learn.""You're legally an adult, you can leave Hogwarts whenever you don't have classes."

"What about my looks? I'm obviously not a 14 year-old.""No, you're about the height of a 15 or 16 year old though, so that's not a problem. Dumbledore has been informed of what happened over the summer, and we'll be releasing a press statement saying you went through an early magical maturity, meaning you had to get specialised training over the summer to learn to control your new strength. You used a time turner, and the summer lasted a year for you. That explains the height, and then we can use glamours to make you seem slightly younger. Anything else you want to whine about?" asked Nicholas with a glint in his eye saying he was enjoying this.

"No."

"Good. By the way, I entered you for the European Duelling Championship, senior level.""WHY?" shouted Harry.

"To give you some experience, as well as improve your reputation. When Voldemort comes back, and we know he will, everyone will look to you because you beat him once before. Imagine how discouraged death eaters will feel and how great wizarding Britain will feel when they remember you were proclaimed the best dueller in Europe at the age of 14?"Harry grumbled.

"While you're at Hogwarts, try and get some of the teachers to duel with you, especially Snape, Flitwick and Dumbledore. Flitwick is a duelling champion, Dumbledore knows how Voldemort fights and Snape can use the Dark Arts, therefore can fight like a death eater. You can fight me at a level beyond all but a few in the world, but you need more experience fighting others."

"Fine!" moaned Harry.

"Now, get ready, Dumbledore told the Weasley's you'd be over be dinnertime today. Have fun, and remember to come back every weekend to continue your training, you still have much to learn young grasshopper." chuckled Nicholas.

**I realise the training was taking quite some time, so I decided to skip some of what I had in mind, and will instead show it in the form of flashbacks throughout the story. As always, please review.**


	11. Chapter 11

Disclaimer: No matter how much I wish it were otherwise, I do not and most likely never will own Harry Potter. It belongs to J.K. Rowling and will belong to her family after she dies, much to the dismay of many.

Chapter 10

Harry sat in his room, his trunk on the bed beside him, his clothes and possessions scattered around him. Most of the clothes had been given to him as he grew by Nicholas, one of the many reasons Harry was thankful the wizened, weathered and conflicted old man had decided to help him. Harry held in his hand a t-shirt, given to him as a reward for finally landing a hit on Nicholas, in anything. Far from being angry with Harry that he had finally been injured, the old man had chuckled and simply stepped it up a notch. Beside him, sat the snow globe, with two statues inside, depicting Harry's parents. It had been given to him when he had managed to beat Nicholas in chess for the first time. As Harry looked around the room, he realised just how much Nicholas had given him, training, a home, clothes, memories, and, best of all, family. Harry sat on his bed, nostalgic for the first time in his life as he looked around the room he would be leaving tomorrow.

A cough brought his attention to the doorway, where Nicholas stood leaning against the frame. "We have to leave today, younger us are arriving tomorrow night.""How come no-one visited here the entire time we spent here?" asked Harry.

"I sent younger me a message when we first arrived here, telling him to stay away until he found someone worth training." stated Nicholas, with a smile on his face. Despite his outward jovial appearance, his eyes betrayed his true sadness. "During the school year, you can come here on Saturday's for more training, by then we'll have time travelled so no one but me will be here. Maybe Sirius, if I can find him."

"I'm gonna miss you, Nicholas." Only now, as the duo were parting did Harry realise he never once called Nicholas by anything else other than his given name, no nicknames or anything. Only now did he realise how much Nicholas had done for him, only now did he realise that he had never asked Nicholas about his past. Only now, did he decide to rectify that. "Nicholas?" Harry's word broke the comfortable silence that had fallen upon the room.

Nicholas jerked his head up, "Yes?"

"You never told me about your life, did you? You never told me about how you were born, or what your family was like or even about your wife, or how you became so knowledgeable or how you invented the philosopher's stone. Would you mind telling me now?" queried Harry. Harry's words caused the smile adorning Nicholas' face to die, making Harry wonder if he had crossed the line.

"I never told you that, did I?" he asked rhetorically. "I had good reason. It is a very depressing story, filled with death and pain and suffering." Nicholas finished his sentence with a grimace.

"I'd like to know." answered Harry determinedly.

"Alright. I was born in the year 1246, in a small settlement in France. It was an all magical town, but a small one, maybe only 200 adults. It was called The D'Artois Hollow, named after the duke who owned the surrounding land, and had originally owned the land of our town, but had given it to the wizards. I was given the name Jean, and I was the only child of two weak wizards, called Jacques and Maxine. I was raised in the town, and taught magic by my parents, however I quickly surpassed them in terms of ability, and our local Shaman recognised my potential, and took me to be taught. I was 6 at the time, and the Shaman was what was known as a Jesuit, which is someone who was like a cleric for the Catholic Church but controlled education. He taught me the morals according to the bible, as he taught me magic and how to use the elements. An oxymoron, I know, a Christian teaching magic, but that's what happened. Anyway, I became more powerful than him by the time I was 14, with more control over my abilities than him and he had taught me everything he knew, so I returned to my family, arrogant and supremely confident in my own abilities.

A few years later, I took a trip to Paris, and insulted a noble, a very well to do and powerful man by the name of the Comte de Berry. He responded to it, and challenged me to a duel. Full of naive confidence in my ability, and title as greatest magic user of my town, I accepted and was humiliated by him. He was an incredibly powerful wizard, with an unorthodox approach to duelling and he destroyed me. I was so humiliated that I went out drinking, and for the first time got drunk. High off cheap booze, I blew up his manor, fortunately he wasn't there at the time. But he knew it was me, and he tracked me back to my village, and challenged me again. He defeated me again, with the warning if I ever wronged him again, he would kill me. I had just been humiliated in my own village, my hometown, and I left. I went back to Paris, and killed one of his friends in a duel. To this day I have never seen anyone so angry. In his anger, he destroyed everything within a mile radius, of course, by then I had fled. He gathered a group of men, and came to my village and burnt it to the ground, destroying everyone in it as he tried to kill me. I was outmatched by a man much more knowledgeable than I, with many more friends, and I fled. I went south, to Rome, and tried to make a name for myself, however he was there. And again, he attacked me, and although he wasn't as angry this time and so better able to control himself, he still created a lot of damage. I went to Spain, I went to Constantinople and Antioch, but wherever I went, he followed, until one night I crept into his room and killed him. I stole the books he had, and managed to get someone to teach me to read. I found out his name was Myrddin Emrys, also known as Merlin, and that he had been alive for centuries, constantly changing identities, along with a great friend of his, who you would know as Godric Gryffindor, his apprentice. I killed him in that duel through trickery. I had caused the death of two of the greatest wizards this world had ever seen, and at that time, all I cared about was how they lived so long, and how I could copy their success in defeating death. I read through their books and managed to find a short passage relating to a Philosopher's stone, created by Merlin, with which he created an elixir he could stay young with. In the passage, where clues relating to the location of this stone, and I followed them for decades, eventually tracking down a tomb in Southport, in England. I tried to enter, but was rebuffed by the wards who called me unworthy. I spent weeks at this tomb, trying to break the wards, and I spent weeks licking my wounds at night.

At this time, I thought, because I defeated the two greatest wizards of that era and the ones before, that I was the greatest, better even than Merlin and Gryffindor, and I was convinced I could break the wards. Eventually, I gave up and went to London, where I hired a curse breaking team to enter the tomb, and they managed it. Annoyed at this, that they succeeded where I failed, I poisoned their food one night as we waited outside the final chamber. "If I broke the final ward," I thought, "I can take the credit for it." 3 months later, with the aid of the books of the curse breaking team, I succeeded, and entered only to find an empty room. In my rage, I destroyed a wall, and I looked behind it to see a single piece of paper, with a recipe on it. I used the recipe, and created my own Philosopher's stone, and went into London, boasting of my ability. I had just used the elixir the stone had made, making me appear to only be 20, when I was actually 140. Of course, I claimed to have been born in 1320's, which would have made me 60, just in case people connected me with the young foolish boy who had been humiliated so often. Despite my age, which I had looked every year of the day before, I was still a foolish, arrogant, self-centred idiot. In essence, I had become something no child wanted to become, something no parent wanted their child to become, I was a modern day David, using my power for my own means.

I began to make a name for myself, Nicholas Flamel, the most gifted fire elemental alive, which wasn't a great boast seeing how most of the elemental's had died when Merlin destroyed my hometown. I used my fame and power to seduce many women, to get free food and great homes and much wealth, but I wasn't content. I kept learning so that I could demonstrate my power in greater ways, to increase my reputation. However, there was one woman I couldn't seduce or impress. A woman called Perenelle Santi, of Italian descent, who was both beautiful and intelligent. I tried to woo her, despite her many protests that she despised me, and all people like me. Eventually, like every time I encountered someone who didn't back down, I left, fled to Prussia and used my name to gain shelter there. However, Perenelle occupied my every thought, no matter how I tried to drown her memory in alcohol, or push her from my mind by buying cheap women, or however many bar fights I got into. She was always on my mind, telling me what an asshole I was. So I returned to London, to try and win her over, saying I'd changed, certain that if I got her into bed, I could forget her and move.

She made me change though, she held of having sex with me until we were married, and managed to use the wedding bonds to make me promise to stay with her. I, buoyant on her beauty, agreed without thinking, something I was very prone to doing. Over the years, those bonds always made me return to her, and each trip away from her became shorter and shorter, until she stopped me leaving at all. Over time, she made me change, and as she aged and I did not, I made the philosopher's stone produce elixir for her as well. People revered me for centuries, and still do, saying I was one of the greatest men of all time, and how I was so wise and intelligent and powerful. You know what I am though, I am the living example that the old adage, "Behind every great man is a great woman." is true. She was a better person than me, and she made me into the person I am today, but no matter how much I changed, she was still greater than me. In 1990, she stopped using the elixir, saying she had grown tired of life and wanted to face the next great adventure. I hadn't the courage to do so, and the only reason I will eventually stop using it, is because she made Dumbledore vow to take the stone and destroy it. She was smart though, and left me enough elixir for another dozen years or so, enough time to come to terms with what will happen." Nicholas finally finished his monologue, head bowed with a morose expression on his face before heading to the door, stopping to deliver one final parting comment, "Why I never told you any of this? I was ashamed. Even at 14, you were a better man than I was at 140. You are a better man than I am now. I spent my life riding the coattails of others, taking credit for what they did, and only when Perenelle made me, did I begin to work on my own."

As Nicholas walked out the door, Harry shouted after him, "It doesn't matter what you were, but what you are." Nicholas continued walking as though he hadn't heard Harry speak, before stopping and turning to Harry.

"But it does. There isn't a day that doesn't go by without me regretting my past, not a single day where I don't point my wand at my head and try to find a reason not to kill myself. I find the same reason every day, I'm a coward. I have lived over 700 years, and greater men than me have died before they had a chance to truly experience the world. I know, I killed many of them." Nicholas turned and walked away, leaving Harry to think upon this nice facet of Nicholas, the broken man he had hidden so well, and how his story had destroyed the pedestal Harry had put him on.

**I must say, this is one of the weirdest chapter's I've ever written. It didn't go exactly like this in my head, but I think this portrayed what I wanted better. I wanted to show Nicholas, not as the great person we know him to be in this story, but as a man who made mistakes. Please review and tell me if it was over the top or not. Have a nice weekend and a great Halloween and please read my other stories.**


	12. Chapter 12

A/N: Sorry about the delay between this chapter and the last, I came down with the flu quite badly as well as having mountains of work to do, coupled with rehearsal's for the play, research for the debate team, helping out at the youth club in my town and having to revise for a test, in other words reality attacked me and proved the adage, "When it rains, it pours." correct. Anyway, in my last chapter I told you the story about Nicholas and there appears to be some confusion about him. The way I wanted to portray him was as someone who was immature, arrogant, prideful, self-centred, basically the way the youth of today are described in Britain, but also as someone who, through the influence of a wonderful person, was able to change, who began to deeply regret what he did and still hasn't forgiven himself for his action in the first fifth of his life.

A/N 2: I would like to thank fierkraag for giving me my hundredth review of this story, as well as thanking everyone else who reviewed.

Disclaimer: I do not now, nor have I ever owned Harry Potter in any shape or form other than the books. If I had the catastrophe know as the Half Blood Prince and the abomination known as the Deathly Hallows would not have been unleashed upon humankind. Seeing as they have, it is logical to assume that I don't own Harry Potter. I do own... very little now that I think about it.

Chapter 11

Harry sat on the side of his bed, stunned about the revelations that Nicholas had given him. Slowly, he shook off his confusion and shock and stood up. Casting a critical glance around the room, he looked to see if he had forgotten anything, before striding over to his bedside cabinet and picking up his wand. A common belief was that wands had varying strengths, and it was completely untrue. Wands could be better suited to someone's magic, and so would provide less resistance for the person who would cast spells, meaning the spells would have more power than otherwise.

Ollivander could, on demand, provide custom wands, however only for those over the age of 17, i.e. those whose magic had settled and wouldn't change much more, and recommended that people change wands at the end of their education as they will undoubtedly have changed since they first received their wand. However, despite the custom wands Ollivander could provide, which were all specially tailored for their recipients, the best wands were those a wandcrafter made for themselves. It was a forgotten art, wandcraft, and so those who remembered it were able to seem slightly more powerful than they would be with a premade wand most people used. Harry had had training in wandlore after his wandless magic advanced as far as it could, and his use of the generic wand Nicholas had given him had begun to plateau. Wandless magic was so rare nowadays because it required a person to have control over their magic and because so many people used wands as a crutch, they couldn't do wandless magic which was technically something every wizard and witch should be able to do, regardless of power, but it meant that truly complex spells, such as advanced transfiguration, were virtually impossible without a wand or focus. Even the generic wand, although reasonably well-suited to Harry, restricted him somewhat as it resisted his spells forcing him to overpower them slightly, reducing the length of time he could continually cast spells.

Nicholas had suspended magic training and had taken him into an unexplored part of the forest, before asking him to send out a magical pulse. These pulses would resonate with any compatible magical source, and create a sense of where the source was in the users mind. Harry had then followed the map back to the two most compatible magical sources and saw an elder tree and a holly tree side by side. It was somewhat unusual that the wood used to make a wand would be that of the tree of death, and life. It wasn't as simple as cutting off a part of the tree, this would cause the tree to turn against him (Nicholas had explained that any natural source of magic, i.e. trees or even animals, was partially sentient) and this would result in his wand not being as compatible as it should be. Instead, Harry had to spend the next few weeks expending his magic as much as possible around the trees while focusing on what he wanted from the trees, without forcing it to occur. Finally, as Nicholas had said it would, a large branch fell off the holly tree, followed soon after by the elder tree. Before Harry could do anything with the wood, he needed to find the cores and had been disguised before being taken to a magical zoo, where he found which animals he was most compatible with, a form of magical lion (which, according to legend, was descended from the Nimaen lion that had appeared in Greek mythology) and a manticore. Unfortunately, there was a catch, Harry couldn't simply run at the animal and steal a piece of it, he had to find which animal of this breed he was most similar to, and retrieve a part of it, either through forcing it into submission or getting on it's good side, depending on the animals nature. Harry was unlucky, both animals would have to be forced into submission, and magic couldn't be used on them or he would run the risk of contaminating the animal and causing his wand to become unstable, meaning Harry had to fight a lion and a manticore unarmed, without magic, Nicholas certainly enjoyed himself.

After visiting a nature reserve for the lions, Harry was able to find the lion he was most compatible with and confronted it.

FLASHBACK

_Harry approached the lion across the grassy plain, already in a stance with perfect balance and his clothes non-restricting but not baggy, his eyes alert and watching for any movement by the lion. The lion that Harry was , unfortunately, most compatible with was an alpha male, standing 6 foot tall at the shoulder, and about three metres long from head to tail, and appeared to be made of muscle. It had been decided that one of the whiskers of the lion would be best, both for the fact it meant Harry didn't need to kill it and that there wasn't as much chance of the lion going crazy. As Harry approached, the lion watched and as Harry drew closer, it pounced, razor sharp claws first. Harry flung his hand forward, pushing up against the lion's paw, causing it to fly over the ducking Harry. It slid and turned to pounce at Harry. As it ran towards him, Harry leapt into the air as the lion approached full speed and landed behind it, instantly pivoting to grab the lion's tail. This was not a good idea. The lion turned, snapping viciously, and Harry leapt backwards. The lion approached Harry slowly now, a glimmer of respect in it's eyes. As it stood less than a metre away, Harry threw the rock he had picked up at the lion's face as it leapt, causing it to flinch away slightly. The split-second in which the lion's mouth was turned away from Harry was all he needed to fling himself on top of the lion and hold it with his arms in a position similar to the wrestling move known as the sleeper. The lion began to buck in a manner similar to bulls, with a slight difference; it was much faster and stronger than a bull meaning it's leaps were more dramatic. As Harry flew up and down on the lion's back, in a way that made Harry think the chances of him having children was highly unlikely, but he persevered and as his head was flung forward and the lion reared back for another jump, Harry's mouth came extremely close to the lion's whisker. Instinct caused Harry to bite it off, practically yanking it out of the lion, which gave a yelp of pain. Instantly, Harry leapt away from the lion and apparated to a laughing Nicholas._

_"What?" growled Harry._

_"You realise you could have used a gun or something to have cut the whisker off, and then retrieved it later, right?" spluttered Nicholas as he attempted to regain composure._

_Harry snarled in response._

END FLASHBACK

Compared with the lion, the manticore had been a piece of cake. As it turned out, the manticore was quite old and Harry found it easy to take one of it's fangs. Harry had hollowed out the fang, leaving holes at both ends, and placed the lion whisker inside the fang, which he grinding down so it was just thicker than the whisker. He then cut the wood down to size, and began to find a way to combine the two woods. This was something Nicholas couldn't help with, each design had to be unique to the individual. Harry realised he couldn't simply make one half holly and the other side elder, it would be liable to break. Eventually, he came up with a plan that allowed him wind the two woods together in a sort of slinky-like design, except more intertwined, resulting in a solid, 12 and a half inch wand base. He was forced to remove the top of the wand to place the core inside, replace the top and infuse it with his magic, a sort of repair charm, which made it seem as though the wand had always been whole. He then was forced to channel as much magic through it as he could, as fast as he could, to ensure the cores fused together with each other, and the wood. It had not been easy, but the end result was a beautiful wand that had been designed for his magic.

As Harry continued his musings, he was interrupted by Dippy. "I will miss little master." sobbed the distraught elf. "Who is I to take care of?"

Harry chuckled, Dippy was actually one of the more fluent in the English language, making Harry wonder what the other house-elves are like. "You can come visit me in Hogwarts, and you'll still have Nicholas. Silly old man can't even make himself a sandwich. He'll need you."

Dippy detached himself from Harry's legs and stepped back, the effort required to stop crying evident in the magical beings face. "Yes, master Harry." He sniffed. "Master Nicky is asking me to give this to you. Bye-bye little master." The house-elf handed Harry a book with a note on the front, before popping away.

_"Dear Harry,_

_I am sorry. I did not mean to unburden myself onto you. Know that I truly have changed since my youth, Perenelle is to thank for that. I told you that you were a better man than I, you showed that yesterday. You ignored what I had done, all the misgivings I had committed and that is something I can not do, I am not a forgiving person, nor a sociable one, nor an exceptionally kind one. The Buddha once said, "You are what you think you are." I have tried to follow this saying from a man much wiser than I, I have tried to convince myself that I am a better person than I am, and so become a better person. In all honesty, it is people like you and Perenelle and even Albus, who have helped me become a better person. Those few rare souls who do not judge others, who do not lecture, but simply do what is necessary and right, regardless of the cost to themselves, you were prepared to die to defeat the basilisk, and protect your school, Perenelle was prepared to die so that I could find the courage to join her, and Albus had the courage to fight against a man who he had once counted a great friend. You do what is right, not what is easy. For that I thank you._

_This book is the completed works of Godric Gryffindor and Myrddin Emrys. I know you shall not misuse it. It is the musings on magic by two of the greatest and most powerful wizards to have ever lived, as well as their works on the various fields of magic, Godric specialised in wards and Myrddin in healing and these two fields are especially detailed. Read it, learn what it has to teach and someday pass it on to whoever you think is deserving of it. I gave Dumbledore a copy of this book when he was my apprentice, and just as I did with him, I have added my own section to it, about my own favoured fields of magic. I also convinced Dumbledore to send me a copy of his papers and thesis' so that I could add them into the book. Do not worry, he does not know why I asked for them, he believes I wish to look over them and send them back with my own opinions._

_Remember, a man's true worth is not in how he fights, but how he reacts to adversary. They sound the same but they aren't. It took me a long time to realise that, and also that I may be a great warrior, a great wizard and a great scholar, but that doesn't mean I am necessarily a great man. As a wise person once said, "War does not make one great." There to life than magic, war or knowledge, remember that and you shall go far. If I could go back to the time I was born with what I now know, my life would have been a lot different._

_Yours sincerely,_

_Nicholas Flamel._

An odd letter, Harry mused, before tucking it away in his trunk with the book. Smiling, he left the room, turned off the lights and walked off the premises to apparate away.

**I can honestly say that this chapter came out of nowhere, I didn't plan it, it just sort of happened. Next chapter sees a return to canon story. As always please review and read my other stories.**

**P.S. This is the longest chapter of this story.**

**P.S.S. Looking for a good beta if anyone is interested, just to flick through my story before hand and point out plotholes or parts where I've messed up as well as grammar and punctuation, thank you.**


	13. Chapter 13

Disclaimer: I do not now, nor have I ever owned Harry Potter in any shape or form other than the books. If I had the catastrophe know as the Half Blood Prince and the abomination known as the Deathly Hallows would not have been unleashed upon humankind. Seeing as they have, it is logical to assume that I don't own Harry Potter. I do own... very little now that I think about it.

Chapter 12

With a loud pop, Harry appeared outside the ramshackle home known as the Burrow, the ancestral home of the Weasley's, whom Harry considered close enough to be family. Cursing himself for forgetting before, he hid behind a particularly large tree and conjured a mirror. With the help of the reflective surface, Harry was able to apply glamours in such a way that he appeared slightly younger than he was. As a result of adding a bit more fat to his face and other minor things such as hiding any stubble and narrowing his shoulders slightly, he was able to appear around 16, the age the Weasley's thought he was after a cunning lie from Dumbledore and Nicholas who had released a press report earlier that day saying he had went through an early magical maturity, and so had to use a time turner over the summer to train and regain control of his magic. It wasn't a complete lie, Harry thought, considering that his magic had matured and the manipulation of magic was necessary for him to regain control of his magic. Sighing, Harry squared his shoulders, vanished the mirror and headed to the door. Harry knocked on the door sharply, and stepped back only for the door to open up to reveal the matronly Mrs. Weasley and swooped in to give him a hug.

"Harry, you've grown so much." she greeted him, before stepping back to survey him, "Still could use a little fattening up, though." She smiled, a glint in her eye letting Harry know she was joking. Harry knew that even with the glamours making him seem a little slimmer, he was in no way the thin, scrawny, short boy who had left Kings Cross Station with slumped shoulders in June, he was instead an average height, with a broad, for a teenager, build and a roguish smile.

"It's good to see you too, Mrs. Weasley." replied Harry, before following the woman into her home, and out to the back garden to be greeted with the sight of the Weasley family eating dinner on an enlarged dinner table, along with Hermione who slammed into him to embrace him in a fierce hug. Harry noticed almost absentmindedly that his growth spurt was quite obvious, at the beginning of the summer he was slightly smaller than Hermione, but now Hermione was able to lay her head on Harry's shoulders without any discomfort, signifying Harry's growth. Ron stood as well.

"Let him breath. Good to see you to Harry." the redhead had also had a growth spurt and was slightly taller than Harry, not a noticeable difference but it was there nonetheless. Hermione stepped back, a slight flush in her face as Harry stepped forward to embrace Ron.

Ron quickly stepped back and sat down again as Mrs. Weasley said, "There's more soup if you want it dear."

Harry smiled, "I'm not one to say no to food, Mrs. Weasley." before taking a seat as he was given a bowl of soup.

"This is Bill." said Mr. Weasley, pointing to a tall redhead who had just got to his feet to shake Harry's hand. There was really only one way to describe Bill's appearance- cool, he had a ponytail with an earring that looked like a fang, wearing clothes more suited to a rock concert than a family meal, although his boots were made out of dragon hide, not leather, Harry absentmindedly noticed. As he scrutinised Bill, he realised Bill was doing the same to him.

"He looks the part of the hero Ginny and Ron have described." thought Bill. "Not overly tall or broad, but seems larger than life. A presence that makes people take notice of him, and I doubt he even realises the power he exudes. I doubt anyone else does, 'cept maybe Charlie. He always was more intune with magic." Bill smiled, as he sat back down, "Yes." he thought, "Firm grip, he fits the legend." He exchanged a smile with his dad. All of this was noticed by an intuitive Harry, whose legilimency had allowed him to listen into Bill's thoughts because of the eye contact, despite Bill's rudimentary occlumency shields. Unfortunately, in a group like this, Harry needed eye contact, or to be touching his wand, to be able to pick out individual thoughts. Because of his training, his legilimency was trying to listen into his surroundings, and the result was it sounded like he was standing in a crowded room, filled with lots of noise as he tried to pick out an individual's voice, while also eating and holding a conversation. In other words, he couldn't pick out surface thoughts in a group situation unless they were shouted, something Nicholas claimed would improve in time.

The other unknown redhead, who Harry guessed was Charlie, a guess the man's greeting was proven to be correct. He was slightly shorter than his brother, although broader and stockier. He had wrinkles around his eyes, noticed Harry, a sign of a very pleasant and easy going person, because they were the result of genuine smiling, and he had quite weatherbeaten skin, which were incredibly freckled. He was also quite heavily muscled, and there was a large, gleaming burn on one of his arms. Charlie noticed where his gaze was drawn, and smiled, "Got it off a Chinese Shortsnout the other week, nasty little buggers."

"Not that big, but very fast and cunning." continued Harry.

Charlie looked slightly shocked at Harry's knowledge, not many people knew anything about dragons, and so Harry continued, "My mentor insisted on me having knowledge of magical beings, it's pretty basic but it's enough for me to know what I'm interested in."

Charlie sat down again, as Harry turned to Percy who had just greeted him as well. "Hello." replied Harry, before casting his mind around to see what he could talk to Percy about, before remembering what he had been talking about at the end of the last year. "Did you get that job that you wanted in the Ministry?"

Percy smiled smugly, "Yes, I'm a personal assistant to Mr. Crouch now, I'm actually doing a report on cauldron thickness for the Department of International Magical Co-operation." As he spoke, the twins, Ron and Ginny all groaned, obviously having heard his spiel before. "I shall have you know cauldron thickness is quite important, they lead to leakages and..."

"That can lead to accidents, sometimes highly volatile ones." continued Harry. "Personally, I blame the Spaniards. They're always to blame." smiled Harry.

Percy replied, slightly shocked, "Yes, it does appear that it is the Spanish cauldrons that are thinner than the rest." As the conversation continued, with Harry finding something to talk about with everyone, Harry silently thanked Nicholas who had, in the last few years, taught Harry how to converse with others and be socially engaging, as well as teaching him various languages and traditions, before taking him on trips to muggle towns and cities, even a few magical villages under heavy disguise, to actually put his knowledge into practise. It was all paying off now.

As they finished dinner, Mrs. Weasley turned to Ron, "Why don't you show Harry where he be'll staying?" Although phrased like a question, it was obviously a command, something even the normally oblivious Ron could pick up on. As he, Ron, Hermione and Ginny headed upstairs, Ron said, "Are you looking forward to the match?""Yes! I'm looking forward to seeing Krum in action, apparently he's brilliant.""He's like an eagle, he sort of glides through the air." replied Ron, awe obvious in his voice, unaware of Harry's indulgent smile, realising Ron would be in for quite some surprise when he saw Harry on a broom again. "Where's your trunk?"

Harry answered nonverbally, by pulling what appeared to be a matchstick box from his pocket and touching it with his finger before dropping it to the ground, where it would expand into a trunk, as Harry looked around the room. "I see your not a fan of orange." said Harry sarcastically, to which Ron replied with a rude gesture that would have had his mother screaming at him.

"Have you heard from...?" queried Hermione, before stopping as she realised Ginny didn't know Sirius was innocent.

"A bit, my mentor Nicky, is going let him stay at his house for a while."

A shout up the house brought the group back down, as George shouted, "Charlie and Bill are having a duel if you wanna watch?"

"What have the twins been up to?" asked Harry.

"Well, we've been hearing strange explosions and noises from their room. Turns out they were making prank equipment for a joke shop, really annoyed mum when she found out." answered Ron.

"Why?" questioned Hermione.

"They didn't get as many OWL's as mum hoped." replied Ginny who had been very quiet up to this point.

Later the fun was stopped by Mrs. Weasley when she said that the younger ones had to go to bed as they had an early morning ahead of them. Harry went to bed with a smile on his face, it was completely different from his pretty peaceful routine with Nicholas. Everyone was very rambunctious and lively, always bouncing around and doing something, in the elder of the Weasley's progeny, it was duelling and dancing and attacking each other's with chairs.

"This," thought Harry. "Is a family." Him and Nicholas were more father son, a pair not a family and so this had been an enjoyable experience.

Harry awoke with a start when his vibrating wand woke him up. Heading downstairs, he saw no-one was in the kitchen as the sun wasn't even over the horizon yet. He had purposefully woken up an hour and a half before the others so he would have time to do exercise and keep in shape. "A figure like this doesn't come without work." chuckled Harry as he began to sprint around the property boundaries, through the forest. Finally, an hour later he stopped his exercise, which had expanded to include press ups and sit ups, as well as weightlifting towards the end of the hour, and sat down in a lotus position. Although nowhere near his usual workout, it would ensure he would maintain his fitness, rather than push the boundaries further.

Stretching out his senses, he felt his magic spread underground. Weaving it in a web around a solid sphere in the ground, he pulled it out and using wandless magic, he began to move it around in the air as he pulled out more and more spheres until he was juggling 6 balls of earth in the air. This was to improve his control, Nicholas was able to do over two dozen, and apparently Dumbledore could do almost as much, and so Harry still had to improve. Finally, Harry put them down when sweat began to run down his forward. Glancing at his watch, he realised he didn't have long left before he had to return to the Burrow, and so smoothed the ground over until there was no evidence he'd ever been there. Grimacing, he realised he wouldn't have time to do any elemental training, and dived headfirst into lake near the Burrow, cleansing himself from the salty sweat that had been dribbling down his body as a result of work out. Propelling himself out of the water, he glided through the air and landed on the ground, before conjuring a small flame over his body, completely drying himself. That small use of the elements would have to do for now.

He walked back into the Burrow to where Mrs. Weasley was making breakfast. "Hello." He greeted the unaware witch, who leapt into the air.

"Harry? I didn't hear anyone coming downstairs?" she said, slightly shocked.

"Oh, I was outside. I had to my practise to make sure I didn't get out of shape. My tutor wants me in tip-top shape for the start of the year, and the events that will take place then." He replied, being deliberately vague about the competition that would be occurring.

"I hope you aren't planning on entering, and you shouldn't even know about the Tournament." she admonished him.

"Lots of people know." replied Harry, avoiding the accusation about entering as he began to help the matronly witch in preparing breakfast. Eventually, Molly, as she had asked Harry to call her, told him to eat some breakfast as she went to get the others.

One short breakfast later, and a rigorous search of the twins later, she was waving to the group who would be leaving to get the portkey.

Next chapter is all of the World Cup and the events that happen both before and after it. As always, review this and read my other stories.


	14. Chapter 14

Hey all, this is Wormyrug.

I have very bad news, I was in a car crash recently and broke my left arm in three places, which means no more updates for a while. Sorry.

But would anyone mind looking at my friends band, the culnafay folkestra:

Add this to the basic you tube website /user/ClaraTheGreater


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